Balls
by Lampito
Summary: It's a very sensitive area - TOPIC, it's a very sensitive TOPIC - with Dean right now.  The more sensible and reasonable Sam is, the more practical Bobby is, the worse it gets... COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Okay, so this is one of those things that I think are called 'plot bunnies' - it's been stalking me, and apparently the only way to deal with them is to get them outta yer system...

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, none of it. Wouldn't mind the car, though.

SUMMARY: It's a very sensitive area – **_topic_**, a very sensitive **_topic_** – with Dean right now. The more sensible and reasonable Sam is, the more practical Bobby is, the worse it gets…

SETTING: Another Jimi the half-hellhound story. Set a few months after "Hot Stuff", when he's about seven months old.

RATING: Rated T for language. There's always language. Dean could swear underwater. Dean could swear under concrete.

BLAME: The silly people who keep saying that they like my loony writing style and the character of Jimi Junior. And who wouldn't like a gorgeous Rottie who could set fire to things on command?

* * *

**BALLS**

Dean sat on the hard bench, squirming uncomfortably. Why are benches in police stations always so damned uncomfortable? he wondered to himself. _Because they want you to squirm uncomfortably, idjit,_ he could imagine Bobby telling him.

"Rumph", rumbled Jimi beside him, putting a paw on his knee. Dean smiled, and ruffled the pup's ears, silently thanking him for the moral support. The paw on his knee was enormous; at nearly seven months, Jimi was big, and had a lot more growing to do. Dean wondered if he would end up bigger than his daddy had been…

"Grrrf," Jimi let out a soft whuff of warning. Dean saw the sergeant making her way towards him, carrying a clipboard in a way that suggested it was actually a loaded weapon. He stood up, putting on his best "I'm-Too-Sexy-To-Charge" face. Jimi sat to attention, radiating helpful obedience and dialling the Big Brown Eyes all the way up to eleven.

"Mr Dean Singer." The police officer shot him a look that managed to convey a lot of things, among them "I Don't Get Paid Enough To Deal With Crap Like This", "Somebody Up There Really Hates Me," and "I Don't Care If You're Brad Pitt If It Was Up To Me I Would Just Lock You Up On General Principles."

"Yes ma'am," answered Dean, "That's me… Sergeant Cutlack," he peered at her name tag. "Please call me Dean."

"And this is your dog, Mr Singer?" she asked. Jimi sat a little straighter, gave an adorable doggy grin, cocked his head in a brain-explodingly cute pose, and offered his right paw.

"Yes ma'am," Dean repeated, smiling a low-cal version of The Killer Smile, "This is Jimi."

She stared unsmilingly at the dog.

Jimi whined, dropped his ears and his head, and peered up at her from under his orange eyebrows, cranking the Sammy Eyes up another notch. It was so endearing, Dean feared that his own brain might explode from the cute.

She was unmoved. She shifted her unsmiling stare to Dean. _Wow, hard case_, he thought.

"Mr Singer, according to a number of reports from different officers, your dog has created a certain amount of… excitement today," she said.

"Er, yeah, so they told me," agreed Dean. "He got out of the car…"

"A dog out in public must be secured or under the control of its owner at all times, Mr Singer," she informed him. "Running loose through the streets causing 'excitement' does not constitute being under control."

"Er, no. It doesn't. Definitely not," said Dean, nodding vigorously, "Which is why I left him in the car, I was only gone for two minutes…

"Yet he was able to make his escape, Mr Singer." She consulted her clipboard. "Officer Hanson informed me that the window of your car was rolled down just enough, and I quote, 'To let out an anorexic chihuahua if you broke its ribs, but not a frigging great Rottweiler'."

"Yes, yes he did." Dean grinned desperately at her.

"How do you suppose that happened, Mr Singer?" She peered down at Jimi. "He does not appear to have opposable thumbs."

"No, but… he's very intelligent," answered Dean. "He's probably seen me open the doors a hundred times, and worked it out."

"Good of him to learn to shut it behind him," she remarked with a smile that would've looked more at home on the front end of an annoyed shark. She consulted her clipboard again. "Now, once he'd opened and shut the car door, he made his way along Main Street, where he paused to steal a, yes, it says here a side of beef from a refrigerated truck unloading outside a butcher's store…"

"Um, I think there must be some mistake," interrupted Dean, "He's a big boy for his age, but he's just a pup, still, and not even a full-grown Rottweiler could carry a whole half a steer carcass."

"That's what I thought," agreed Sergeant Cutlack, "Until I saw the phone footage. Marvellous things, these mobile phones. Damned things have better resolution than my digital camera. Having stolen a side of beef, he made his way to Kincaid Park, where he was challenged by Officers Gray and Luger, whereupon…" she double-checked her notes, "He chased Officer Luger up a tree."

"Oh, I guess Officer Luger is not a dog person, then?" Dean risked a small smile.

"Officer Luger is a 130-pound oversize German Shepherd," she said. "He is a multi-decorated veteran siege dog. Last year, he disabled two Rottweilers, a Pitbull and a wolf half-breed in a drug raid. Under fire, he has brought down several gunmen during his career."

"Well, Jimi can be a bit… boisterous when he meets new people, or dogs," Dean explained, desperate smile pinned in place.

"Officer Luger once stopped a getaway car by tearing off a tyre. On vacation, he fought off a grizzly bear. Your _puppy_ chased him up a _tree_."

"Er, well, maybe he thought his snack was being threatened…"

"When Officer Gray radioed for back-up, he was joined by Officers Pickering and Dakota," the sergeant continued, "While Officer Gray attempted to persuade Officer Luger to come down from the tree – a pine, incidentally, how he made it up the first eight feet with no branches is something of a mystery – Officers Pickering and Dakota attempted to apprehend Jimi." She glared down at the dog again. "Your dog, Mr Singer, then perpetrated what I shall refer to in mixed company as an 'indecent assault' upon Officer Dakota."

He did?" Dean gawped, then looked down at Jimi, who was managing to radiate contrition in the megawatt range. "That's terrible! Please tell Officer Dakota that I will of course pay for any dry cleaning expenses…"

"Mr Singer, Officer Dakota is a police horse."

Dean blinked. "Jimi humped a police horse's leg?"

Sergeant Cutlack gave him a look that would've frozen lava fresh from the volcano. "If only it had been as… innocuous as humping a _leg_, Mr Singer."

Dean's jaw dropped. "You can't mean…"

"Would you care to see the cell phone footage for yourself, Mr Singer?" she asked. "I will understand if you do, because I for one did not believe it until I saw it."

"Oh." Dean was at a loss for words. "Are you sure it wasn't consensual?" he tried, grinning.

"Officer Dakota is a gelding."

"Okay, but maybe he's, you know, maybe he bats for that team…"

"Officer Dakota also tried to climb a tree."

Dean gave her a blank look. She waggled a cell phone at him, and raised her eyebrows.

"Er," he said. "Um, was it the same tree that Officer Luger went up?"

"The tree is irrelevant, Mr Singer," scowled Sergeant Cutlack, "What is relevant is that your dog, which you supposedly left secured in your car, managed to get out, shut the door behind him, commit theft, then assault two members of the police force. Rottweilers have a bad enough rep without morons who have no idea how to handle them letting them run loose. The biggest problem I have here, Mr Singer, the biggest problem I have here, is trying to work out which one of you is really the public nuisance."

A torso in uniform appeared around the door. "There's a guy here for Singer?" said the officer.

"Yeah, send him in," the sergeant replied in a tired voice. "Frankly, I'd like to send you to the city Pound, Mr Singer. The problem is usually with the owner, not the dog."

Sam came hurrying into the small room. "Officer Crameri has just filled me in," he said apologetically to her, "And I'm horrified. Just horrified."

"And you are?" Sergeant Cutlack asked.

"Sam Singer. I'm Dean's brother. And I'm just absolutely horrified." He turned to Jimi and Dean. "What were you doing? I've just been to the butcher store, to apologize, and pay them for a stolen side of meat! I can't take my eyes off you for five minutes, and you're in trouble!"

"Hey, he's just a puppy," protested Dean.

"I'm not talking to the dog, Dean!" yelled Sam angrily. "What if he'd been hit by a car? What if he'd got lost? And we have the appointment in two days…"

"Appointment?" echoed Dean.

"Yes, the appointment, don't you even remember?" repeated Sam, with a small twitch of one eyebrow, "The vet appointment." He turned back to the decidedly disgruntled sergeant. "He's booked in to be desexed in a couple of days," he explained, "His behaviour has been a bit… disruptive recently, and the vet says it's just raging hormones. Once he has the operation, he should be a lot calmer, and much less inclined to cause trouble." He gave her his I'm-Peeking-Up-At-You-Adorably-Through-My-Hair-Even-Though-You're-Down-There smile. "The thing is, to get him home for his appointment, we really have to leave this afternoon."

Sergeant Cutlack sighed, and looked, if not actually happy, a bit more gruntled. "You've been to see the butcher?"

"Absolutely," confirmed Sam, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket, "He very kindly wrote me a receipt. Mr Parisi. He was very understanding, under the circumstances. Says he had a Mastiff who was just as cheeky as a pup."

"To tell you the truth, I am not looking forward to doing the paperwork on this one," she confided. She stared hard at Dean and Jimi, who both wilted slightly under her glare.

"Okay," she decided. "I am releasing you into the custody of your brother, and trusting him to see that the vet appointment is followed through. I think it's in everyone's best interests." She even gave Sam a small smile. "Responsible pet ownership is kind of a hobby horse of mine," she told him, "I have a Ridgeback myself, and I know what a handful they can be at this age."

"I have no intention of letting him breed," Sam assured her.

"Right, then," she turned back to Dean and Jimi. "Get Tweedledum and Tweedledumber here out of my sight before I change my mind."

"Thank you, Sergeant," said Sam sincerely, shaking her hand, "In a few days, this problem won't exist any more."

"Whuff?" went Jimi, cocking his head and offering his paw. Sergeant Cutlack relented, and shook it.

"Behave yourself, mister," she chided him. The Sammy Eyes blew the relays on the gauge.

"Let's get out of here before she offers to do it herself with her teeth," Sam hissed at Dean.

"Amen to that," replied Dean, picking up Jimi's leash and following his brother.

As they left, Sergeant Cutlack called out,

"Oh, Sam?"

"Yes, Sergeant?" he smiled.

"While you're at the vet," she deadpanned, "You might enquire about getting your dog desexed, too."

* * *

This would stand as a one-shot, but if I can think of a job to send the Winchesters on with horny teenage Jimi in tow, I might write some more. There's great scope for a 'to desex or not to desex' argument between Sam and Dean - guess who'll be on which side? Whaddyareckon? Reviews poke the Chocolate-Powered Inspiration Update Fairy with a pointy stick!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Great job, Sam," smirked Dean, "Maybe you should go back to school - you'd knock 'em dead in a courtroom."

"I don't believe this," scowled Sam. "What the hell did you think you were doing leaving him alone?"

"I was hungry," replied Dean defensively, "And there was a two-for-one pie offer advertised on the window of the diner, so I just ducked in. I was gone two minutes. I told him to stay!"

"You know he's reached the equivalent of teenagerdom, and he's pushing the boundaries," Sam accused his brother, "You shouldn't have left him alone! We can't leave him alone until he's matured enough to learn to control his more... unusual talents. Anyway, what if he _had_ been hit by a car?"

"It probably would've folded up around him," said Dean smugly, "Remember when that semi-trailer hit Jimi Senior?"

"That's not the point! Dean, he stole a 400 lb side of beef, after walking through the door of the car! God, he chased a siege dog up a _tree_? He molested a _police horse_?"

"That's my boy," Dean smirked again.

Sam favoured him with a shot of Bitchface #7 (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable At Times, You Know That, Dean?). "And that strikes you as acceptable behaviour, does it?" he demanded. "He's testing the boundaries of authority, and all you can do is say, 'That's my boy'?" They reached the car, and Sam strode to the driver's side. Dean was going to protest, then thought better of it – Sam with a PMS happening was best dealt with by humouring him, at least until they could get some chocolate biscuits or something…

"Come on, Sam," wheedled Dean, "He has one little bit of… excitement, and you're acting as though he's some sort of canine delinquent."

"He _is_ a canine delinquent," stated Sam, pulling away from the kerb. "Or have you forgotten the little bit of 'excitement' three weeks ago, when he stole another 'snack', and tried to bury it?"

"That's normal," Dean said defensively, "Dogs bury their food and come back to it."

"It was a whole sheep, Dean."

"Maybe he was really hungry."

"It was still alive, Dean."

"So he likes his food fresh!"

"Then there was that other little bit of 'excitement', when he nearly got all of us trampled to death by a very large, very fast, and above all very angry stud bull," Sam went on.

"Okay, yeah, but he didn't start that," countered Dean, "The bull started chasing him."

"Only because Jimi was molesting his herd of heifers," Sam continued.

"But there was no harm done, was there?" answered Dean.

"I don't know, I have no expertise in assessing cows for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, you'd have to ask a bovine rape crisis hotline about that…"

"I mean, the bull didn't get us, did it?"

"No, Dean, the bull did not get us, since Jimi chased it over two gates and into that swimming pool."

"See? Just a bit of harmless hijinks!"

"So, it was just hijinks when he attacked that cougar, then?"

"It was self defence," Dean asserted, "It tried to jump him."

"It tried to jump him, Dean, because he was raping its mate…"

"He's just enthusiastic when he plays, Sam," Dean told his brother, reaching back to pat Jimi. "You're the one who's always going on about how important play is for a young dog. He just likes to play! He's just like other dogs that way, really."

"Oh yeah, just like other dogs," said Sam dubiously, "Which would no doubt explain the 'excitement' at the beach a week ago."

"It's only natural for dogs to chase after birds, things that fly fascinate them," replied Dean, "You saw it for yourself. That poodle there caught a seagull!"

"Yes, yes it did," agreed Sam. "And if Jimi had caught a seagull, it would not have been a problem. But Jimi did not catch a seagull, Dean. Jimi caught a hang-glider."

"I still think you're over-reacting," grumped Dean, crossing his arms. "Just like the guy in the hang-glider. A bit of stitching, it'll be good as new."

"And I think that we need to deal with Jimi's behaviour before his games get any more 'exciting'," Sam shot back. In the back seat, Jimi turned the Big Brown Eyes on.

"Oh, please, girlfriend," growled Sam, looking at him in the mirror, "I was doing the puppy-dog eyes thing for nearly thirty years before your daddy was even a doily on someone's head…"

"So, where are we headed?" asked Dean, deciding that dropping the topic for now was probably the safest option.

"I told you already – we're heading back to Sioux Falls, for Jimi's vet appointment," his brother answered.

Dean sat bolt upright, alarm on his face. "What?"

"He's overdue for his six-month checkup," Sam clarified, "And Dr Wooley wanted to keep an eye on his joints, because he's growing so fast."

"Oh," said Dean, relaxing again.

"We can also discuss his desexing," Sam added.

Dean snorted. "There is nothing to discuss, Sam."

"Good," said Sam. "I'm glad we agree. We can make the arrangements while we're there."

"Whoa, whoa, hold the phone there, Francis!" Dean sat up in agitation, "I mean, there's nothing to discuss, because we are not getting him fixed."

"Let's discuss it with Dr Wooley before we make a decision," Sam suggested.

"Hey, which bit of 'There is nothing to discuss' did you not understand?" countered Dean. "I'm telling you, we are not subjecting Jimi to, to, to genital mutilation!"

"You tell Dr Wooley that," smirked Sam. "Go on, I dare you…"

"It's in the breed standard, Sam," Dean asserted, "He's supposed to be natural and rustic."

"That refers to his appearance, and is only for show dogs," Sam answered.

"Well, it's not going to happen." scowled Dean. "Give me three good reasons why anyone should mutilate their dog like that."

"For a start, it eliminates the possibility of him siring unwanted litters and contributing to the stray animal population," began Sam, "To say nothing of the consequences of letting a half-hellhound breed – we have no idea what the effect on the litter would be. It also eliminates the possibility of testicular cancer, and drastically reduces the incidence of prostate tumours when he gets older. It will stop him roaming after bitches in heat – or horses or cattle or mountain lions in season, presumably – and will pretty much reduce his urge to hump anything in sight. He'll also be a more contented individual, not prey to constant sexual frustration, and he'll have better concentration on working. The way his is now, he can't control himself."

"He can so!" exclaimed Dean loyally. "He never pesters Rumsfeld or Janis."

"That's because they are his mother and his sister," Sam told him. "Most species have ingrained aversion to incest. Except bonobos, and some reptiles. And fanfic writers. Anyway, Rumsfeld is not nearly as tolerant as the average female mountain lion. He's being totally driven by his hormones – desexing is the only way to deal with that." He looked at his brother sideways. "In fact, the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a good idea to get you done…"

"And I'd return the favour, Samantha, if I didn't believe that you don't have any balls to start with," Dean muttered angrily. "Let me just make myself clear: we are NOT, I repeat NOT, cutting Jimi's boys off."

"Okay." Sam had a nasty habit of being viciously calm when provoked.

"Okay?" Dean bristled suspiciously.

"We'll get Dr Wooley to do it."

"Stop the car, Sam."

"No."

"Sam, stop the car and get out. I'm driving."

"No. I'm driving until we get to Bobby's" stated Sam. "So don't even think of trying to run away with him."

Dean slouched in the seat, with murder in his eyes. "Don't you worry, Jimi," he told the dog behind him, "Anything Dr Mengele here tries to do to you, I will do to him. Only I'll use a rusty hacksaw and a pair of wire-cutters. With battery acid for disinfectant."

* * *

... it's going to be tears before bedtime, isn't it?


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Jimi loved visiting the vet. The receptionists fussed over him, and Dr Wooley, a pleasantly attractive lady in her mid-forties, always had a pat and a liver treat for him.

"Hold still, fella, hold still!" she laughed at him, as his wagging tail made the scale reading jump around. "There we go… wow, that's 90.5 pounds, and not nearly grown into those feet yet."

"Is he okay with that?" asked Sam. Dean just glowered, too cranky at his brother even to engage in his usual flirting banter with the vet.

"Well, he's not carrying much fat," she replied, running hands over his ribs as Jimi half-closed his eyes and enjoyed the stroking. "His joints don't seem to be giving him any problems. I'd like to x-ray him at 12 months, to check, but right now, he is an adorable picture of robust health." Jimi humphed at the cessation of her hands running over him, and she gave him a liver treat.

"Great," said Dean brightly, "So, we'll just be on our way, then…"

"Now Sam," continued Dr Wooley, "Regarding the behavioural problems you were telling me about on the phone" – Dean shot a glare of pure death-ray at his brother – "Now would be a good time to arrange desexing him."

"No," said Dean quietly. "No. We're not getting him desexed."

Sam threw his hand up and huffed in frustration. "Dean, we're not going to breed from him. You are being completely unreasonable."

"Unreasonable? _Unreasonable?_" Dean rounded on him. "How would you like it if someone decided to cut your balls off, because I'm pretty sure I'd object!"

"Jesus, Dean, will you stop anthropomorphizing?" stormed Sam.

"Fine, you stop trying to mutilate the dog, and I'll stop anthromo… anthorp… doing that!"

Sam ran a hand over his face. "Once, just once," he muttered, "Just once, could you try to be sensible about something?"

"I don't believe you could even think about doing that to him!" Dean shouted. "It's pathetic! Are you so threatened that you want to emasculate the dog?"

"Are you so hormone-demented that you can't think with your brain instead of your dick, on this one occasion?" Sam shouted back.

"Gentlemen," said Dr Wooley quietly.

The Winchesters turned to see both the vet and Jimi looking at them with expressions of pure 'WTF?'?

"Oh, Jimi, I'm sorry, fella," said Dean quietly, reaching down to reassure the dog. "We didn't mean to upset you. I'm just trying to protect your manhood here…"

"Dean," rumbled Sam warningly.

"It's okay, Sam," intervened Dr Wooley in a conciliatory tone of voice, "A lot of men feel the same way as Dean does when it comes to desexing a male dog. They worry that he will somehow lose his maleness, his assertive qualities, and feel frustrated afterwards, maybe inferior to other dogs. Is that what's worrying you Dean?"

"Yeah," agreed Dean a bit miserably, "I mean, I know what I'd think if someone suggested neutering me." He glared at Sam, who stuck out his tongue.

"The thing is, Dean, you are not a dog, and Jimi is not a human," explained the vet. "I won't do the operation unless both of you are happy with the decision. But you have to understand that Jimi doesn't think about his testes the same way a human male does – dogs don't have all that cultural and personal baggage, they just know what their hormones and instincts are driving them to do. In the case of a male dog, that means constant distraction, it means mate with anything you can, and it often includes cause general mayhem."

"That's what I've been trying to tell him, doc," said Sam, "But he's not convinced."

"No, I'm not convinced," growled Dean.

Dr Wooley smiled. "That's okay," she laughed, "A lot of men find it hard to believe. I find that a demonstration is usually more effective than just stuff straight out of a first-year textbook. Dean, would you let me demonstrate how Jimi's hormones will affect him if he stays entire?"

Sam looked at her dubiously. "You can demonstrate that?"

She smiled at Dean. "To a man like Dean, I believe I can," she replied.

"Okay, doc, lay it on me," smirked Dean, clearly thinking that was nine-tenths of the way to getting the final say.

"Right. Sit down here," she indicated a chair, "And close your eyes." He glared at her suspiciously. "It's all right," she reassured him, "Sam here can chaperone, and Jimi will protect you, I'm not going to do anything except talk. No hands. Promise." With an amusingly Sam-like humph, Dean did as he was bid. Dr Wooley cleared her throat.

"Now, Dean," she said, her voice dropping half an octave, "I want you to imagine that you are walking in a park. It's a bright, sunny day… and as you walk, you realize that you can hear voices. Human voices. Human female voices. They're coming from behind a line of trees, so you walk over to the trees, following the female voices."

A small smile appeared on Dean's face.

"They're young female voices," the vet continued, her voice low and sweet, "And it sounds like they're having a good time – they're laughing, and giggling, and squealing."

"Squealing?" asked Dean, his eyebrows rising.

"Yes, squealing. Whatever could they be doing? So, you look through the trees to see what they're doing…"

The smile on Dean's face twitched.

"You look through the trees," continued Dr Wooley – Sam found himself wondering why he'd never noticed just how, how, _seductive_ her voice could sound – "And you see that it's a group of three young women, mid-twenties, frolicking in the sunshine."

"Frolicking?" asked Dean, swallowing.

"Frolicking like you wouldn't believe," replied Dr Wooley. "It's a sunny day, and they're wearing bikinis. Naturally, you're interested…"

"Oh yeah," chortled Dean, grinning.

"So you move closer, and that's when you recognise them: Angelina Jolie, Raquel Welch, and…"

_Audrey Hepburn_, Sam mouthed to her over Dean's head.

"… and Audrey Hepburn," Dr Wooley continued smoothly.

Dean gasped. "Audrey Hepburn?" he asked. "In a bikini?"

"Yes, twenty-five-year-old Audrey Hepburn, in a bikini." Dr Wooley's voice was pure honey. "But she's holding her cigarette holder elegantly while she frolics."

"Is Raquel Welch wearing a fur bikini?" asked Dean, a slight quaver in his voice.

The vet leaned in close to Dean. "Only the bottoms," she whispered, "The top has gotten lost in all the frolicking."

"Wow," breathed Dean.

"So, as you watch these, laughing, giggling, nubile young women frolic, you can't help but notice how healthy and attractive they look," she continued. _She probably makes extra money after hours working one of those sex chat lines_, Sam decided. "They're young, and toned, and perfect, and, well, very sexy."

"Oh yeah, sexy," agreed Dean in a thick voice.

"The word 'pert' pops into your mind…"

"Pert, definitely pert," Dean was breathing a bit more rapidly.

"…and as you watch these, attractive, sexy, _pert_ young women frolic… they notice you," Dr Wooley's voice was silky, "And they smile and wave at you, Dean, they want you to join them, right now, Dean, hurry…"

"Ohhhh, I am so there…"

"They are delighted to have you with them," the vet went on, relentlessly alluring, "They say they've been waiting for you, they'd like you to perform a small… service for them."

Dean made a strangled noise in his throat.

"You see, Dean, they've all lost their bikini tops now, and it's a sunny day, so they'd like someone to rub sun lotion aaaaall over them…"

Sam saw Dean's right hand twitch. _Dear God, _he thought desperately,_ don't let him grab his… _

"So you pick up the bottle, and squirt a generous amount into your hand," the vet's voice tempted, "And you start on… Audrey's back, and she's giggling, and wiggling, and squirming under your touch…"

"She's – _gulp_ – squirming?" Dean was practically panting.

"Squirming, _writhing_, and she turns around, and says, 'Don't miss any bits, Dean, I don't want to get sunburned anywhere, especially anywhere _delicate_…"

"Ohhhhh, Audrey…"

"And that's when you realize," breathed Dr Wooley into his ear, "While you're slathering sun lotion all over the front of Audrey, that's when you realize that Angelina has grabbed your ass."

Dean let out a little squeak, and jumped in his seat.

"She's teasing you, Dean," said the vet, as if she wasn't, "She smiles at you, and then pouts, 'Hey, don't forget me!', and then Raquel presses closer to you, and breathes in your ear: 'Dean, why don't you do us… all at once?'."

Sam wondered if Dean was about to start drooling.

"And they all start laughing, and squealing, and saying, 'Yes, let's all do each other!', and that's the point where they start tearing your clothes off, Dean, although they have some trouble, because the sunscreen has made their hands, their whole bodies, so slippery…

Dean let out a quiet whining noise.

"And they giggle when your shirt comes off, Dean, then Audrey suggests, 'Hey, girls, let's do this no hands!', and they giggle some more, and then they all crowd around you…"

_I'm going to count to ten, then excuse myself,_ decided Sam, _this is worse than having him watch porn while I'm trying to read…_

"They're pressed in so close to you, all moaning your name," the vet was unstoppable, "So close to you, that you have no idea which one of them is actually undoing your belt…"

"Yeeeeeeeeep!"

"… and fumbling at your fly…"

"Gnaaaaaaaarg…"

She was bending over him, breathing throatily into his ear. "And that's when… that's when…" Dean drew in a ragged, gasping breath.

Dr Wooley stood up. "Okay, Dean, demo over," she said brightly, getting another liver treat for Jimi.

"Aaaaaaaaaargh!" Dean's eyes flew open. He stared wildly at her. "What? What? That's it?"

"Yes, all done." She said. "So, how do you feel right now?" she asked him in a business-like tone.

"Er," he replied, a flush rising on his face. "Um."

"Quite," she agreed. "So, how you are feeling right now, that's how a male dog feels all the time."

Dean gaped at her. "All the time?"

"All the time," she repeated. "An undesexed male dog is driven to want to mate all the time. The thing is, I want you to imagine feeling like this, all the time, and never, ever being allowed to have sex."

"Never?" asked Dean in a horrified tone.

"That's what you're doing when you keep a dog entire. He's in a constant state of arousal, and if he's not a stud dog, he never gets… relief. No sex. No… self-service. Nothing. Just feeling completely horny, all the time. For the next several years."

Dean stared into space, looking absolutely stricken.

"Why don't you think about that, and whether you want to inflict that on your dog," she said. "When you make your decision, let me know if I have to book him in."

"Thank you, Dr Wooley," said Sam, shaking her hand with admiration, "And might I say that it was a privilege to watch a master at work."

"I'm sure you'll both just want what's best for Jimi," she smiled, "Right, Dean?"

"Yeah," he said in a small voice, "I want him to be a happy dog."

"Good. Well, I'll see you two later. Bye Jimi!" She gave him a pat and a final liver treat, as he shook hands and whuffed affectionately at her before she left.

"We good to go, bro?" asked Sam.

"Yeah," said Dean, looking thoughtful. "Um, look, that was a bit intense… I'm just gonna, sit here for a minute and, and…"

"You do that," smirked Sam, taking Jimi's leash and leaving the exam room.

"Bitch," the call floated after him.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo….. ...oooooOOOOOooooo….. ...oooooOOOOOooooo…..**

"So, how did it go at the vet?" asked Bobby when they returned. "Did Dr W. talk some sense into you, boy?" he frowned at Dean.

"She gave him her special, ah, 'demonstration' of why male dogs should be desexed," explained Sam tactfully. Dean flushed, and muttered something unintelligible.

Bobby's eyebrows rose. "Oh. Oh," he commented. "Brought out the big guns, did she?"

"Yep," grinned Sam.

Bobby paused, and stroked his beard. "Who?" he asked finally.

"Angelina Jolie, Raquel Welch, and Audrey Hepburn," Sam supplied.

"Shut up, bitch," scowled Dean.

Bobby looked thoughtful. "Swimsuits, or cheerleaders?"

"Bikinis. Tops lost during intense frolicking."

"Wow," commented Bobby, "She really wasn't messing around." He peered at Dean. "You okay, son? You need a cold drink?"

"He needs a cold shower," grinned Sam.

Dean stood up quickly, shoving his chair back hard. "I'll just leave you two assholes to yuk it up, then," he snarled, stalking out and heading up the stairs.

"Hey, where are you going?" Sam called after him.

"To take a shower, since you think I need one, bitch," came the grumpy reply.

"Leave him be, Sam," sighed Bobby, "He'll calm down eventually. One of Dr Wooley's 'demonstrations' can take some recovery time."

"Yeah, I can understand that, she could do it professionally…" Sam's face suddenly scowled, and he went pounding up the stairs, shouting as he went.

"Hey! HEY! Don't you contaminate any of my stuff - and DON'T YOU DARE USE MY SHOWER GEL!"

* * *

I think I get it now - torturing Dean can be kind of fun. More chapters may follow if Bobby comes up with a job to send them on. Or if Jimi does anything else naughty.


	4. Chapter 4

Curse this annoying thing called 'gainful employment', it's making a real dent in my writing time... it's not fair, really, expecting me to show up and do work every day to get paid. Can't they just send me my salary? Anyway, thank you to the kind (and frankly slightly demented) reviewers who are determined to encourage me, and want more Jimi stories. I shall do what I can, time and the Chocolate Powered Update Inspiration Fairy willing. I'm wondering where this one might go - let's poke it with a stick, and see.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

"One day, that dog is going to wake up with a curly tail and go oink," predicted Bobby as Dean slipped Jimi another piece of bacon under the table. "Hasn't Dr W. Given you the lecture on Preventing Obesity In Our Pets?"

"I don't think we've had that one," mused Sam. "We've had Getting Your Puppy Vaccinated, Socialization From A Young Age, Healthy Coat And Teeth, and of course Why We Should Desex Our Animals..." Dean made a strangled noise, "But I don't think we've had the obesity prevention one. Did you get that?"

"Kind of," Bobby told him, "When I had Rumsfeld in for her check-up; I protested that she wasn't overweight, and Dr W. said she wasn't lecturing me..." Bobby rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Told Rumsfeld she wasn't walking me enough, too."

"You want to watch out, Bobby," cautioned Dean, "Or Rumsfeld will get the Why You Should Cut His Balls Off As Well lecture."

"Not really necessary, since I'm not a danger to the local female populace," sniffed Bobby primly, "And I most certainly do not chase police dogs, steal beef carcasses or pull hang-gliders out of the sky."

"What about, er, intimate relations with cattle?" asked Sam, ever the one with a mind for details.

"Closest I ever got to that was Adelaide Matthews, after the high school formal; she turned out to be a complete cow," Bobby told him. "Dean, you really shouldn't be feeding him at the table."

"You'd deny a condemned man a last favourite meal?" asked Dean with an expression as wistful as the one Jimi wore whilst watching the piece of bacon he was holding.

"And you accuse me of being a drama queen," commented Sam, pointing a spoonful of oatmeal accusingly at Dean. "Last meals are for those who are about to be executed. Jimi will be having routine day surgery, and it's not for another ten days."

"There are some things worse than death, Sam," Dean intoned sadly, "And getting your boys cut off is one of them. It's perfectly normal to go through a grieving process in the face of mutilating surgery – I would have thought that you, Mr Caring Sharing Talk About Our Feelings And Now Let's Hug And Have A Little Cry, would understand that."

Sam stared at him incredulously. "Dean, will you listen to yourself?" he said in an exasperated tone. "One word for you, bro: context. If you were a cancer patient facing a bilateral orchidectomy, I might be prepared to listen to this stream of whining..."

"See, that's exactly the problem," replied Dean in a sullen tone. "A thing-ectomy is cutting things off. Orchidectomy. Cutting off his orchids. Beautiful, delicate things that are nature's works of art, they should be admired and enjoyed, handled carefully, and should not be messed with by humans..."

"You're only supposed to grieve for your own, you melodramatic idiot!" Sam burst out. "Grieving for a dog's balls is just weird! Even for you!"

"What the hell would you know?" Dean hissed back. "It's not like you use yours for anything more constructive than keeping your dick company, and frankly they're the only company it ever has. If you woke up one morning and they were gone, you wouldn't even notice until you found out that the little lacy numbers from Victoria's Secret suddenly fit more comfortably!"

"Fine! Fine!" agreed Sam, getting up from the table and pacing, waving his arms in exasperation. "There will be an official mourning period for Jimi's gonads! The household will mourn in black! Perhaps a short but dignified funeral service can be arranged. I would be happy to deliver the eulogy for you. 'Here lie Jimi's balls, a small part of the dog's body, but apparently a huge chunk of Dean's ego'. A modest wake will be held afterwards, with tea and cucumber sandwiches! There will be a condolences book, please feel free to sign it, or hey, let's leave an ink pad next to it, and guys can leave ball prints of condolence! I'm even prepared to fork out to buy you lotion tissues to wipe away your heartbroken tears! In fact, I'll even wait in the car while you go pick out a waterproof mascara!"

"You think this is funny?" growled Dean, getting up.

"No. I think this is ridiculous!" countered Sam.

"Okay, time out, you pair of idjits," called Bobby. "You're enough to upset a man's digestion. Certain things should not be tolerated at breakfast time. Opera, for example. Mime is another one. Anything sung by Billy Ray Cyrus. Or Celine Dion. Amway sales spiels. Vacuum cleaner demonstrations. Mention of men wearing women's underwear. And arguments over funeral arrangements for a dog's balls. So, either you two go outside and beat the crap out of each other, or you go upstairs and have hot make-up sex, but take your arguing asses outta my hearing – either way, don't expect me to kiss your bruises better afterwards." He shook out his newspaper, and began reading.

Both Winchesters stopped and stared at Bobby with wide, horrified eyes.

"Did he say what I think he just said?" asked Sam in a faint voice.

"You don't look so good," observed Dean, "Maybe you should sit down. Maybe I should sit down."

"Actually, I think I should lie down. By myself. With all my clothes on," clarified Sam.

"Maybe we can just transfer breakfast to the sitting room, and..." his voice trailed off as he caught sight of his empty plate on the table. Jimi sat next to it, licking his chops.

"You ate my breakfast," Dean said accusingly, as Jimi offered him a completely unrepentant doggy grin. "Dude, you ate my _breakfast!"_

"Oh, gross, there are tongue marks in my oatmeal!" commented Sam, shoving the bowl under Dean's nose and pointing out the offending divots in the cereal, "Tongue marks!" He narrowed his eyes at Jimi. "I know it was you," he growled, "Because _I'm_ the only human here who eats this stuff, and _you_ have it in your whiskers!"

"Well, you two were so wrapped up in your foreplay you didn't notice the nose patrolling the table," commented Bobby, turning a page, "Serves you right."

"Deeeeean, make the creepy old man stop," pleaded Sam.

They retired to the sitting room, ostensibly to look for their next case, but largely to get away from the remarks Bobby kept making.

"_You idjits put a towel on the sofa, I just had it steam cleaned,"_ he called after them.

"Remind me not to annoy Bobby again in a hurry," muttered Dean from the allegedly pristine sofa, shuddering as he turned the page on a newspaper. Jimi put his head on Dean's knee, and whuffed sympathetically. "God, you don't think he's been reading fanfics on _that_ website, do you?"

"Definitely not," said Sam firmly, clicking away on his laptop.

"How can you be so sure?" asked Dean.

"Because the internet is still here," replied Sam, following a link. "If Bobby read even one Bobby/Crowley story, he'd find a spell to make the entire internet, and every computer connected to it, explode. At the very least, he'd curse the server _that_ site runs on; the mushroom cloud would be visible from the North Pole."

"_I hope you're Daddy gave you the Talk about using Protection..."_

"Maybe Rumsfeld will arrange to get his balls cut off," Sam grumbled. "Or at least get him debarked."

They worked in silence for a while, until they found a series of incidents that might, or might not, be linked.

"Werewolf?" suggested Dean.

"No, two attacks occurred well past the full moon," replied Sam.

"Werewolf with pathological procrastination issues?" tried Dean.

"Er, probably not."

"Vampire?"

"No bite injuries."

"Vegetarian vampire with poor interpersonal skills?"

"I don't think so."

"Water Sprite on vacation?"

"Dean..."

"Possessed golf clubs?"

"Now you're being silly."

"Possessed person with perfectly ordinary golf clubs?"

"That, sadly, is the most sensible thing you've said all morning..."

While Dean tried to think of another possible explanation, Jimi jumped onto the sofa beside him. He barked twice, then gave Dean a shove that pushed him right off.

"Hey!" yelped Dean, getting up off the floor, "I don't mind you sitting on the sofa with me, but you do not get to hog it!" He went to sit down, but Jimi blocked him and barked urgently.

"Something wrong, Jimi?" asked Sam. As he turned away from the laptop, there was a sudden familiar flapping sound, and Castiel appeared sitting on the sofa, squashed up against the dog. Jimi leaned in close and began to sniff his face.

The angel looked startled.

"Who are you?" he asked, nose to nose with the dog. "You are a dog. You are not Dean. I was expecting Dean to be sitting there." Jimi considered this, and climbed into Castiel's lap. "Are you Dean? Have you angered a witch recently? If you are Dean, I am surprised that you are actively moving to bring me into your personal space."

Jimi kissed Castiel on the nose.

"Cas, meet Jimi." smiled Dean. "Jimi, this is Castiel, a friend of ours who is in no position to lecture you about invasion of personal space."

The angel craned his neck to peer at Dean over Jimi. "This is a dog."

"It's that all-knowing angel thing he does," Dean told Sam. "Never fails to amaze me."

"Why is this dog sitting on me like this?"

"It's his way of showing affection," Sam told him.

Castiel thought about that, then nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "I have seen physical demonstrations of affection like this before. Women have done this with Dean to express intense friendliness." He looked at Jimi, who kissed him again. "Although when women crawl into Dean's lap, they are usually not licking his nose…"

"Oh God, have I been thrown back into Hell?" winced Sam.

"… and if in fact this dog initiates a similar display of affection, I will have to insist that he stop, because such activity is in fact illegal in this country…"

"Maybe if I ask nicely, they'll let me back in," moaned Sam.

"Yeah, okay, we get the idea, Cas," said Dean quickly, at least having the grace to blush.

"…and while Dean apparently enjoys the activity, if the noises and facial expressions that ensue are anything to judge by…"

"Hey, creepy stalker angel, what have I told you about not intruding on Special Cuddles?" demanded Dean.

Sam put his head into his hands with a small keening sound.

"...I am not enjoying it. I find it… disquieting." He frowned at Jimi. "Stop licking me."

Jimi regarded him seriously for a moment, then continued his salivary display of affection.

"Perhaps I did not make myself clear," said Castiel, "I do not wish to be licked by you. Also, I would like you to remove yourself from me. You are sitting with a foot in my vessel's groin, and it is quite uncomfortable."

Dean called Jimi off the sofa. "Come here, Jimi, away from the pervy rapey angel," he glowered at Castiel. "Let's watch him from over here, and he might tell us why he's dropped in. Hopefully he has something better to do that tell us about his pathological voyeurism."

"Hello, Cas, why are you here?" sighed Sam.

"I am here to ask your assistance in locating an artefact," the angel said seriously, standing up. "We believe that a Wand of Bethany has come to light, and is being used."

"Who's Bethany?" asked Dean.

"I think it's a case of where's Bethany," corrected Sam. "It's a village mentioned in the New Testament. Lazarus lived there." He looked back to Castiel. "What's the Wand of Bethany?"

"A Wand. There were several made. Jesus is described as having cursed a fruitless tree on the road out of Bethany, and there were wands made from the wood of the dead tree after it withered," explained Castiel. "We thought them all lost or destroyed centuries ago. In the wrong hands, they represent powerful destructive potential."

"Oh, no, not another missing nuke," groaned Dean, "Can't you guys just get out your heavenidium Geiger counter, and wave it around until it goes beep?"

"It is not, as you put it, one of the nukes; it is not a Weapon of Heaven," Castiel told him, looking down curiously as Jimi approached him and sniffed at his trench coat. "It is an artefact of earthly origin, which is why we cannot locate it easily. This also suggests that it is being actively hidden, which in turn suggests dishonourable intentions on the part of what is this dog doing?" he finished, as Jimi sat in front of him and shoved his nose enthusiastically into the angel's crotch.

"Er, it's his way of saying hello," stumbled Sam.

Castiel nodded again. "Ah," he said, "I have seen this form of greeting before also..."

"Cas..." rumbled Dean warningly, "If the next sentence out of your mouth suggests another intrusion on Special Cuddles, I will get the holy oil and Molotov your pervy feathery ass."

Castiel appeared to consider what he was about to say, and thought better of it.

"Perhaps you could teach him to shake hands instead," he suggested.

"Hopefully this sort of behaviour will diminish after he's neutered," Sam told the angel. "That's not until next week, though, so we probably have time to go check out your artefact first."

"Thank you." Castiel looked down at Jimi and frowned. "Stop doing that. It is worse than the face licking. My vessel is experiencing a certain amount of pain there from when you stood on me."

Jimi obligingly backed off the crotch-sniffing, and began leg-humping instead.

Castiel looked at Dean. "Dean, I believe your dog is attempting to... become intimate with my leg, in much the same way..."

"Don't say another damned word," growled Dean, pulling the dog away from Castiel.

"I was going to say that it reminded me of a Latin American dance style," continued the angel. "I had no intention of mentioning ... Special Cuddles. You have made it clear that you do not like that."

"Yes. Well, that's good," conceded Dean, "You keep up the good work."

"Besides which, it does not really resemble Special Cuddles," the angel clarified, "Because that entails you standing directly in front of the young lady involved..."

Sam felt his knees fold underneath him, and he sat down again. "Maybe just a week or so Downstairs," he whimpered, "As an inpatient."

* * *

Angels - they're as bad as Ceiling Cat. Who knew?

Every time you leave a review, an angel goes and watches somebody else's Special Cuddles.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"You'd think that with all his angelic mojo, he could be a bit more specific," grumbled Dean. He was grumpy because he was tired, not having slept very well.

His dreams had started off relatively innocuously, something about buying tickets to a pie festival, but rapidly took a turn for the worse. The salvage yard had been invaded by a horde of terrifying vet nurses, all waving Responsible Dean Adoption pamphlets, then Bobby had cornered him and announced that Dean had to go to see Dr Wooley for a little operation that would make him be a well-behaved boy, and Sam proudly showed him the little coffin he'd made for his big brother out of a cigar box, with a nice velvet lining and everything, then Bobby showed him the nice new collar and leash he'd bought for Dean for the occasion, and patted him on the head and called him a brave boy, and Castiel had clapped him on the shoulder and said "Never mind, we can teach you to shake hands instead" then they left Sam making cucumber sandwiches and Dr Wooley was wearing a fur bikini and holding the biggest syringe he'd ever seen... after that, he'd been unable to get back to sleep, and had spent the rest of the early hours clutching at Jimi with one hand and his most prized possessions with the other.

"I guess angels don't think about geography the way humans do," answered Sam mildly. He had slept unexpectedly well: he'd dreamed that he'd been in a nice, warm, peaceful place, with tasteful red decor, and had been lying on a comfortable sofa, talking to an elderly bespectacled demon who listened carefully, nodded sympathetically and diagnosed him with Fulminant Big Brother-Induced Bewilderment with Chronic Secondary Exasperation, and prescribed a course of good books, nature documentaries and chicken and avocado sandwiches, then a friendly demon in an old-fashioned nurse's uniform had shown him back to his suite, and kept popping in to make sure he was reading his books and taking his beer.

"Yeah, but 'Somewhere in Iowa – probably' is not that helpful," complained Dean. "It's like... like..."

"Needle in a haystack?" suggested Sam.

"Worse," replied Dean gloomily, "It's like someone asking 'Where's the virgin?', and you point them at a cheerleaders' convention and say 'Over there somewhere – probably'."

"He did offer to zap us there, save us a few hours," Sam reminded him.

"No thanks, my stomach is still settling after Bobby's conflict resolution suggestions," shuddered Dean, "I am NOT flying AngelAir. Not until they start serving bran and prune muffins with the in-flight catering. God knows what it would do to Jimi – his intestines are excitable enough just riding in the car. How you doin' back there, J-Man?" he asked. Jimi was watching the scenery go by with a happy doggy grin. "What are we looking for, anyway?"

Sam reached back to get his laptop. "There's not a lot on these Wands of Bethany," he started, "Bobby's book didn't have much, which is unusual. Probably because they were believed lost. Who made them, and how they're used, is a bit fuzzy. Cas said 'powerful destructive potential'."

"That still doesn't help much. That could be descriptive of lots of things: a bomb, a bulldozer, a three-year-old with a pack of crayons..."

"I'd be guessing they act on plants, somehow, make them unfruitful, or kill them off," theorised Sam.

"Sort of like occult Agent Orange?" asked Dean.

"Kind of. In the right context, that would represent 'powerful destructive potential'. Think about what it would do through most of human history, when most people lived in agrarian societies. Kill off the crops, kill off the people. That's the kind of thing I think we should be looking for, anyway, unusual or unexpected die-offs."

"So, we hit Iowa, and start looking for wilting plants," sighed Dean. "I suppose it could be worse. You may be in danger of starving to death if all the salad gets nuked, but Jimi and I will be fine if the hamburgers inherit the Earth."

"What exactly are the beef cattle going to eat?" asked Sam, smiling smugly.

"We'll grind up all the dead salad-eaters and turn them into feed meal," Dean smirked back. "Soylent Green for cows. And pigs will eat anything, so bacon is safe."

"No more pie, though," Sam told him.

"Pie does not grow on trees, Sam. More's the pity."

"No," Sam agreed, "But wheat to make flour to make pastry is a plant. Apple and cherry and apricot and blueberry and pecan and lime and pumpkin fillings come from plants. Sugar to sprinkle on top comes from sugar cane. Ergo, no more pie. Still," he continued in a consoling tone, "You'll always have sushi."

"Sushi?" said Dean, in the same way other people might say 'live worms as a foodstuff?'. "Sushi? Are you serious? Sushi is not food, Sam, it's bait with social pretensions, delusions of grandeur."

"Maybe you could make do for a while with tinned pie fillings," suggested Sam, "Stockpiles of precious pie fillings, hoarded away to be doled out in modest servings on special occasions. Only you'd have to make it into sushi instead of pies. You could have apple sushi, peach sushi, banana cream sushi, lemon meringue sushi, key lime sushi, until the rice ran out, then you'd just have to eat it wrapped in seaweed."

"Heretic!" intoned Dean in a grim voice. "Sam, I've warned you before about mocking the gods of pie. No good will come of it. You'll end up crushed to death under a truckful of broccoli, in a roadside accident that the police will describe as tragic, if somehow strangely hilarious." As if in response to the mention of pie, his stomach rumbled. "There. See that? All your smartassery about pie has angered the gods. We'll have to stop, and appease them by consuming pie, or they will make terrible juju on us."

"Fine, find us an appropriate temple so that we may stop and worship pie," groaned Sam with a pained expression. You couldn't argue with Dean once he'd decided he wanted pie. Might as well try to convince a compass that it didn't really want to point North, and one day all that pointing was going to make it sick, and when it got older it would have to ration its pointing so it didn't get fat. Maybe they'd stop somewhere that did chicken and avocado sandwiches. That would be nice: if he slept well again tonight, he could truthfully tell Dr Uphir in their next session that he'd been sticking to his prescription.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"I never get sick of that," grinned Dean with a mouthful of pie; outside the diner, a couple of young men had stopped to look the Impala over. When one of them tried the door, Jimi detonated in a most impressive performance of snarling, slavering, and generally carnivorous intentions. One of the men fell over his own feet in fright. "Better than a car alarm."

There was a moment of silence, then more shrieking and the two young men set off running up the street. "Wow, look at 'em go," Dean laughed, shovelling more pie into his mouth, "Anyone would think they had a hellhound after them..."

"Er, actually, Dean..." began Sam, getting up with a concerned expression, "I think they actually do have a hellhound after them."

"What?" Dean did a double-take out the window, just in time to see a black streak disappear beyond the window, around the corner, and out of sight.

"Shit!" he muttered, jumping up and heading out of the diner, sprinting in the direction the dog had taken. "Jimi!" he called. "Jimi, you get your hell-bred ass back here, or so help me..."

He rounded the corner, and saw that a small crowd had gathered around a tree. Well, not so much of a tree as a big shrub, really. The two car-casers were perched precariously in the springy upper branches. Jimi prowled around it, like a shark looking for the best spot to take a bite at a sunbathing whale.

"Jimi!" he called urgently, "Jimi, come here!" The dog wasn't paying any attention: the shrub was moving in the breeze, and every dip of the upper branches made the two men perched there shriek again.

Dean pushed his way through the increasing crowd – apparently people in Iowa liked a bit of street theatre as much as anyone else – and grabbed Jimi by his collar.

"Okay, show's over, folks," he said brightly, "Thank you, thank you, we'll be here until Thursday..." The men in the waving shrub stared at him incredulously. "Serves you right for messing with my car," he said primly. "C'mon, J-Man, time to go – what the hell did you think you were doing?"

"That's funny," said a voice behind him, "I was about to ask you exactly the same thing. Is this your dog, sir?"

_Oh, no..._

He turned around and offered a cheerful grin to the unsmiling police officer who was holding a leash attached to an unsmiling Rottweiler that had at least 20 pounds on Jimi.

Dean had a moment it which to think, It doesn't get any worse than this.

And that's when Jimi really screwed the pooch.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"What happened? What did he do?" demanded Sam ten minutes later, when they were back on the road and heading east, thinking very hard about being invisible.

"He really screwed the pooch this time, Sam," Dean answered in a despairing voice. Jimi sat in the back seat chewing contentedly on something.

"Dean, what did he do?" asked Sam insistently.

"I told you, Sam, he screwed the pooch. Literally. He humped the police dog." Dean sounded pained. "She snarled at him, then he gave her what I can only guess must be the canine version of a killer smile and a smart pick-up line – one second she's threatening to kill him, the next, she's sniffing his butt then practically running backwards at him. I had to grab a slurpee off a kid in the audience to throw at them!"

"Oh, God..." Sam looked stricken.

"The cop tried to stop them, but then his dog chased him up the shrub as well," Dean continued, "It really wasn't able to cope with three people up it – it bent over, and the cop came within teeth range, and..." he shrugged helplessly and gestured at Jimi's new chew toy.

Sam turned around to look more closely, and his face paled. "Oh, God," he said again, "Tell me those aren't what I think they are..."

"They are," confirmed Dean sadly, "Police issue tactical pants." Jimi looked up and gave them a doggy grin. Sam put his face in his hands, as a fire engine went past in the other direction. He looked up again, an expression of fear on his face.

"Dean, he didn't... hurt anybody, did he?" Sam asked in a small voice?

Dean sighed. "No," he replied, "The truck's probably on the way to deal with the cruiser."

"What cruiser?" asked Sam suspiciously.

"The police cruiser," Dean clarified, "The one Jimi cocked his leg on..."

Sam slumped in his seat. "Oh, fuck," he moaned.

Dean glanced at Jimi in the mirror. "It must be the teething," he said uncertainly, "He just wants to chew on anything, at this age."

"Yeah," echoed Sam faintly, "It's very important for proper jaw and tooth development that he have lots of chewing toys, to develop his muscles and bone structures, set his teeth properly in his jaw, and strengthen the insertion points. If he was a German Shepherd, it would be essential for his ears to stand up properly, too."

"Really?" asked Dean. Sam nodded vaguely. "What about hellhounds? Is it important for them to learn incendiary bladder control at an early age?"

"Er, I can't say I've read much about that on the 'net," Sam confessed, "But I imagine that it's important for a hellhound to learn to manage that as soon as possible. Er."

They drove for another three hours, hoping that all the attention would be on the constabulary striptease act and burning police car. When Dean finally decided that they had travelled far enough, they found a suitable motel.

"I did manage to get these," Sam waved a pile of newspapers at his brother, "So we can at least get some research done, while we wait for the authorities to come and arrest us for aiding and abetting an impromptu burlesque street performance."

They did manage to turn up a couple of possible leads – the cancellation of a vegetable growing contest due to a mysterious outbreak of some disease, and mysterious dead patches appearing on lawns. "It's not much to go on yet," griped Dean as he prepared for bed.

"Mmmng," was all the answer he got from Sam, who had managed to fall asleep infuriatingly quickly. Dean smiled at his brother – it was gratifying to see him getting some decent sleep.

"It could just midgets making lawn crop circles," he said, mostly to himself.

"Yes, doctor," mumbled Sam. Dean's eyebrows shot up.

"I'll leave a message for Cas," he said.

"This couch is really comfortable," sighed Sam.

"Let him know we're here, and got a couple of possible leads."

"Yep, had it for lunch," Sam muttered.

Dean stifled a laugh. "Whatever you're dreaming about, bro..."

"Thank you, nurse, I'll drink it right away."

"... I hope you're taking notes." He knelt by his bed, put his hands together and closed his eyes to send a message to Castiel.

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

In Iowa, the room is cheap,

I send a note to Castiel

Although I don't have much to tell.

Sam has a theory on the wand

We have some clues that correspond

Although we are not really sure,

Tomorrow we'll research some more.

... And if I die before I wake,

I hope that Heaven's full of cake.

Amen."

Dean climbed into bed as Jimi sighed and turned around on his blanket.

"Night, Sam," he said.

"Please, Nurse Aliah, will you cut the crusts off?"

* * *

Every time you leave a review, Sam gets another counselling session with Dr Sigmund Uphir; Chronic Secondary Exasperation can be such a debilitating condition.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_...Dean fidgeted; he never enjoyed wearing a collar and tie, and he felt kind of... funny._

"_You okay, bro?" asked Sam from beside him – his brother was similarly attired, looking respectably formal, and his smile wavered slightly. "You need to sit down?"_

"_That would probably be sensible," he heard Castiel say from behind him. In observance of the formality of the occasion, the angel was wearing a dark suit under his trench coat, and even had his top button done up and his tie properly adjusted. "Dr Wooley said the anaesthetic might have some after-effects, and that he should not exert himself for the next forty-eight hours."_

"_Get your brother a chair, Sam," ordered Bobby, and Sam scrambled to obey. Dean did a double take – Bobby scrubbed up remarkably well in a suit, and..._

"_Bobby, have you washed your hat?" he asked in amazement._

"_Of course," answered the old Hunter, touching the brim of his unnaturally clean trucker's cap, "You think I'd do this with a dirty hat? You mean more to me than that, son."_

"_Rumph". He felt a wet nose nudge in under his hand. Beside him, Jimi looked up at him adoringly. His mother Rumsfeld, and his sister Janis, sat beside him. All three of them had natty bows of black ribbon tied around their necks._

_The feeling of the gathering was formal, yet festive. Humans and the dogs were gathered under a tree, around a small, neatly dug hole cut cleanly into the grass._

_Dean felt his stomach roll over. **No...**_

_Bobby cleared his throat and announced, "Right, let's get this show on the road." He smiled at Dean. "You sit yourself down, boy," he said gently. He felt his knees wobble, and Sam pushed him down into the chair placed behind him. Bobby opened a large book, and began to read._

"_We are gathered here today, on this happy occasion, to observe the figurative and literal burial of one of the most unseemly, unstoppable, and plain uncivilised libidos ever known to humankind..."_

_Dean stared in horror at the small, neat hole. **No, no...**_

_The reading went on, but he hardly heard it. "... We celebrate with Dean as he moves on to a more enlightened, cerebral and settled state of mind... Look forward to his improved concentration making him an even better Hunter... Commemorate this joyful occasion, on which he starts out on a new phase of his life..."_

_Dean felt dizzy. Sam reached down and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and Castiel actually smiled at him._

"_I now call on Dean's brother, Sam, to say a few words..."_

_Sam's 'few words' turned out to be horror stories of walking in on his big brother in various compromising situations, and how glad he was that it wouldn't happen any more. Bobby and Castiel laughed along._

_Then Castiel stepped forward, reverently holding something. A small box. A cigar box._

**_No, no, dear God, no..._**

_The angel carefully placed it in the small, horribly tidy hole._

"_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," intoned Bobby as Castiel filled in the hole with the sad-looking little box in it, "Say goodbye to your bottomless lust."_

_Dean stared blindly at the small grave. _

"_And now, Castiel will read a poem that he wrote himself, in honour of Dean's special day," said Bobby cheerfully. Castiel took a piece of paper out of a pocket, and began to read."_

"_Happy Orchidectomy, let's have a celebration.  
__Let's raise a glass to toast the end of all your fornication,  
__I'm just so happy for you now you'll stop the rampant rut,  
__I always knew there's more to you than smirking, smug man-slut. _

_In beds, in cars, in haystacks too, in barns or under trees,  
__There's nowhere that you haven't been with pants around your knees,  
__Between some loose young woman's thighs, when she is barely dressed,  
__While you were pounding up and down as though you were possessed,_

_But thankfully, it's over now, and will not cause distraction,  
__The hunting down of evil things will be your satisfaction.  
__No traumatising Sam with tales of conquests on the road,  
__From now on we'll mean bullets when we say you've shot your load."_

_Bobby and Sam smiled widely and applauded. Dean nearly fell off his chair._

_Sam was at his side immediately. "Hey, you all right, bro?" he asked._

_Dean made a strangled squeaking noise._

"_He is probably faint from lack of food," decided Castiel, "We should go inside now. Sam has prepared some cucumber sandwiches. You should eat some. Cucumbers are an excellent source of magnesium, silica and molybdenum, which will promote healing of your incisions."_

_In a daze, Dean allowed himself to be led into the kitchen. Bobby paused in making tea – the teapot had a motif of orchids on it – and pulled him into a rough embrace. "I'm proud of you son," he said thickly._

_Sam shyly offered him a beautifully wrapped present. "I hope you won't be angry at me for how much I spent, but I wanted to get you something special for today." He grinned, and pulled an unresisting Dean into an affectionate hug. "Happy Orchidectomy, big brother," he whispered happily._

"_Let him sit down before he falls down," growled Bobby, dabbing at his eyes with a corner of his apron. _

_Castiel steered Dean to a chair. "Are you going to open your present?" he asked._

_Numbly, Dean tore at the sparkly paper, pausing only when he saw the packaging inside._

_In florid script, it read: Victoria's Secret..._

Dean woke up with an ear-splitting shriek of terror.

Sam, who had been sitting on his bed pecking away at his laptop, looked up in concern as his brother sat bolt upright, shrieked again, and sprinted for the bathroom.

"Dean!" Sam ran after him, and pounded on the door. "Dean! What is it?"

A moment later, Dean emerged, and sagged against the wall in relief. "Just a nightmare, Sammy," he said, "It was just a nightmare."

"God, Dean, you scared the crap out of me," Sam told him. "You gonna be okay, bro? You wanna talk about it?"

Dean shot him a stricken look, but then relaxed. "Er, no, no, Sammy, it's okay, I'll be fine. It was just a nightmare. Let me get dressed, and we'll go get some breakfast."

Sam looked at his brother, feeling guilty and relieved and worried and protective. He hated it when Dean had nightmares. He felt responsible. Dean had gone to Hell to save him. Who knew what ghastly memories of the Pit tormented him in his sleep? He turned the puppy-dog eyes on. "You know, I'm right here if you ever do wanna talk about it," he said quietly.

Dean smiled shakily at him. "Yeah, I know. Let's go eat. Food can cure all sorts of things, from rattled nerves to bubonic plague."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"So, you think there might be something in this?" he asked later, through a mouthful of bacon. "What the hell is that?"

"Chicken and avocado omelette," replied Sam, pulling together the clippings from local newspapers. "There's been several reports of some mysterious disease attacking people's vegetable patches in the region. All the reports are a bit, well, weird."

"Weird? The-aliens-have-landed-and-they-all-look-like-Iggy-Pop weird, or they're-not-telling-us-something weird, or running-around-wearing-your-shorts-on-your-head weird?" asked Dean.

"Not-telling-us-something weird. These articles refer to 'malformed vegetables', but don't say what the problem is. You'd think they'd try to identify the pest, warn people, let other gardeners know what to do about it, but... nothing. Just 'malformed vegetables'." Sam pushed another article over. "There's been a competition cancelled, too, a fundraiser. It's called 'Mine's Bigger Than Yours'."

"Pity," smirked Dean, "I could probably have entered and won prize money."

"It's for vegetables, you idiot," Sam rolled his eyes, and stabbed a piece of avocado. "Apparently, it's a local highlight, been running for years, but now, so many regular entrants have had their vegetable patches affected, they're going to have to cancel." He paused for a moment, then continued, "It could be the sort of thing this Wand might do. I think we should check it out."

"Well, when it comes to sizing up vegetables, I will defer to you, my saladosaurus little brother," Dean told him, "Jimi and I, as humble carnivores, will follow your lead, and do our very best to take you seriously with straight faces."

"We should take him with us, let him sniff around," decided Sam, "He's developed a nose for the paranormal. If we can just get him to be a bit more disciplined, learn to keep his, er, talents, um, under control in front of the civilians..."

"Use his superpowers for good, not evil?" suggested Dean.

"Exactly. Speaking of which..." Sam pointed out the window with his fork, to where two women were standing by the Impala, chatting amiably. One held the hand of a small child. The child's other hand held an ice-cream. Unnoticed by her mother, the smiling child was sharing the ice-cream lick for lick with Jimi, who had stuck his head out the window.

"Awwwww, that's kinda cute," smiled Dean.

"Except the window isn't actually wound down," Sam pointed out.

The child giggled as Jimi leaned further through the door, and licked ice-cream off her face.

"Hey, it's ice-cream, dude. Ice-cream. When ice-cream is involved, all bets are off."

"Fine, you go out there and explain it to them when they start screaming," Sam said calmly, taking another bite of his omelette.

Dean blinked, mildly disappointed that his comment had not provoked any bitchface glaring. The benefits of a good night's sleep, he supposed, shuddering again at the memory of his own nightmare. With a sigh, he got up to try to convince Jimi to obey the laws of physics for a little while.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The house they visited looked neat and ordinary. Dean fidgeted in his collar and tie, déjà vu recalling the horrible dream he'd had. The door was answered by a man in his sixties.

"Mr Alfred Andrews?" asked Sam.

"Yes," answered the older man, "Can I help you?"

"My name is Sam Young," Sam said, using his Impersonation-Of-A-Responsible-Authority-Figure voice, "And this Dean Johnson, my partner. We are with the Department of Community, Residential and Agricultural Plantings. We are investigating reports of a possible disease outbreak in vegetable patches in the region. I understand that yours was one of those affected?"

"Yes, yes, it was, please come in, gentlemen," said Mr Andrews, opening the door and ushering them in.

"The Department of C.R.A.P.?" muttered Dean to Sam incredulously. "That was the best you could do?"

"We'll tell people it's pronounced 'see-rap'," Sam muttered back.

"And who is this?" asked Mr Andrews, smiling at Jimi, who sat and offered a paw, radiating helpfulness.

"This is Jimi. He's a trainee sniffer dog," Dean answered, "He is learning to detect various invasive bugs that can cause plant diseases. If you don't mind, I'd like to let him check your yard."

"Of course," Mr Andrews replied. "It's kind of a relief to know that somebody is taking this seriously. If it was just my patch, I wouldn't worry, but it's spread, and I have no idea what's causing it."

"I assure you, Mr Andrews..."

"Alfred, please call me Alfred."

"I assure you, Alfred," said Dean unsmilingly, "We take this sort of C.R.A.P. very seriously indeed."

Sam surreptitiously kicked his brother, and asked, "So, Alfred, what can you tell us about the problem? Preliminary reports mentioned some malformations in vegetables? Something about cancelling a competition?"

Alfred looked sad. "I'm president of the local gardener's club," he told them, "And we started a competition years ago, to see who could grow the biggest vegetables. It was a joke – we called it 'Mine's Bigger Than Yours' – and we turned it into a fundraiser for a children's hospital charity. It's been running for nearly thirty years now, and it draws entries fromacross east Iowa. Unfortunately, this year, a lot of regular entrants have had this problem hit their patches. Reliable varieties just aren't getting up to size – they're growing in these, ah, funny shapes instead. So many people have been affected, it looks like we'll have to cancel the completion. It's sad, really, it's a fun day."

"How exactly have the vegetables been affected?" continued Sam.

"It's probably easiest if I just show you," Alfred told him ruefully, leading them into his backyard.

It was clearly the vegetable patch if a keen gardener. The plants were in neat rows, weeded, and green and thriving. The pumpkins were fat and orange, the courgettes were large and green, the carrots were leafy and tall.

"Usually I plant these varieties for the contest," he continued, "But none of them are up to size this year, and in addition..."

He pulled up a carrot, and showed it to them.

"Oh. Er. Um," commented Sam.

Dean bit down on his bottom lip, and bit back a laugh,

"All I can tell you, boys," sighed Alfred, "Is... it's not anybody I know."

At that, Dean burst out laughing. Sam glared at him.

"So, Alfred, er, this is not, er, the usual, um, morphology for this variety?" he asked.

"Unless somebody substituted my 'Orange King' seeds with a new variety called 'Donkey Dick',son, I don't think so," Alfred deadpanned. Dean doubled over laughing.

Alfred pulled up another one. "The first one, I thought it was just funny," he said, handing over another positively pornographic carrot, "The second one, I thought it was a coincidence. The third one, my wife nearly gave herself an asthma attack laughing."

"I'm sorry, Alfred," wheezed Dean, "But they are the funniest carrots I've ever seen."

"You like the carrots, you'll love the courgettes," grinned the older man, reaching down and picking a long, green, anatomically astonishingly correct vegetable. Dean shook with laughter. Sam glared at him.

"The mutant masterpiece has to be the pumpkins, though," Alfred announced, with the air of a magician about to unveil his best trick. "They taste just fine, but I've kept some of them going, because, well, frankly, because they're as funny as hell..."

He pulled back a piece of shadecloth to reveal a pumpkin of astonishing proportions.

"So, pumpkins are not usually supposed to be, er, bilobed, are they?" asked Sam faintly, staring at the pumpkin that was shaped like two large cantaloupe melons and so much more.

"Generally not, and certainly not such a perfect pair of... assets," smiled Alfred. "Who do you think, Dean?" he asked, clearly amused to have found a partner in appreciation of provocatively shaped vegetables, "Jane Manson? Marilyn Monroe?"

"Pamela Anderson," said Dean, between howls of laughter, "But so much more realistic."

"Yeah, I estimate this one as about 36DD," Alfred laughed along with him. Sam looked at the two of them as if they were mad.

"Alfred, would you be prepared to put us in touch with some other members of your club, regular entrants whose gardens have also been affected?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Alfred answered, getting his laughter under control.

"You know, Alfred, if you don't have a contest to find the biggest vegetable, you could always change it to a contest to find the most, er, you know, amusingly realistic one. You could call it, 'It's Nobody I Know'." He smiled winningly. Sam gave him a death-ray shot of Bitchface #1™ ((Dean, I Don't_ Believe_ You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!). "Uh, I'll just get Jimi to have a sniff around, see if he turns anything up."

"Fine, you do that," muttered Sam between clenched teeth as he followed Alfred back indoors. "And no fondling the vegetables!" he hissed.

Dean flipped him off, and then encouraged Jimi to sniff around.

There was a strange and wonderful assortment of vegetables bearing truly astonishing resemblances to parts of the human body usually only seen in situations of extreme intimacy. Apart from attempting to hump a pumpkin with extremely convincing contours, Jimi didn't seem to find anything that concerned him.

"Okay, J-Man," smiled Dean, "Let's go and rescue Sam and his delicate sensibilities from the Attack Of The Porn Plants." As he turned to go indoors, Jimi pulled to the end of his leash, and growled at something.

"Jimi? Something there?" Dean followed the dog to a yellowed patch at the edge of the lawn. Jimi growled again.

Under a shrub, stark against the dark soil of the garden bed, was the unmistakable yellow of sulphur.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

""At the very least, it's witchcraft," said Sam when they were back in the car, "Although at least it would be a witch with a puerile sense of humour rather than a vicious desire to hurt people. I was going to wonder out loud if this is a trickster," he continued, "You don't think there's any chance it could be himself, somehow?"

"If it was Gabriel, it would involve obscene confectionery, and there would be a lot more screaming," replied Dean. "This is too tame for him. Besides, that was definitely sulphur that Jimi found."

"It's definitely not something that could happen naturally. Certain viruses and insects do cause misshapen vegetables, but nothing like… that." Sam waved a piece of paper. "Alfred gave me a list of gardening club members and regular entrants to the annual contest. 'The usual suspects', he called them. We should check some more of them out."

"We're the men from C.R.A.P., we're here to help," grinned Dean.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Can we try to pronounce the acronym as 'see-rap', please?"

"Serves you right for careless department invention," Dean smirked. "Next time, think of something else, like Department Investigating Crop Kinkiness, or Bureau Of Outlandish Backyard Stuff…"

"Less talking, more driving, Dean."

"Big Inscrutable Twerp's Concerningly Hairy."

"Just Exercise Road Knowledge."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

They spent the next three days working their way through the list of addresses that Alfred had given them. The pattern was the same: varieties of vegetables that were selected for size had produced extremely average-sized vegetables with extremely non-average morphology. The gardeners affected seemed to see the funny side, and were philosophical about it, although disappointed that their big vegetable contest would not go ahead.

In all the affected gardens, Jimi sniffed out patches of discoloured lawn or vegetation, and found the occasional sprinkling of sulphur.

Dean never got tired of the joke. Sam was worried that he was going to cause himself some terrible internal injury if he didn't get his hilarity under control.

"I swear, Sam," he gasped, clutching at his sides after another visit by the men from C.R.A.P., "I swear, just when I don't think they can get funnier, I'm proved wrong! Did you see that parsnip? I don't _believe_ that parsnip!"

"Yeah, I saw the parsnip, Dean," confirmed Sam, blushing slightly at the memory.

"That was a seriously masculine parsnip, Sam. Natural and rustic."

"Yes Dean, it was."

"Dr Wooley should probably have a talk with Mrs Riley, make sure she understands that she should get that parsnip desexed."

"Dean…" Sam said in a warning tone. Dean cleared his throat, and looked serious.

"I admit it, my masculinity has been threatened; I feel somehow inadequate. I think I have parsnip envy, Sam."

"Dean…"

"And the rootlets made them look _hairy_!" Dean howled with laughter again.

"Jesus, Dean, remind me again how old you are?"

"And the one right next to it – Mrs Parsnip! They fit together perfectly!" Dean gave in to hysterics. "They can have a whole bunch of baby parsnips!"

Sam winced, and put a hand to his head. Somehow, this was worse than Busty Asian Beauties.

"Dude, I thought after that squash with the Brazilian, it couldn't get any funnier, but that parsnip…"

"Dean!" barked Sam, "Can you pretend, just for a moment, that you are more than six years old, and try to help here?" He scowled at his brother. "If you have some sort of porn-plant-induced asthma attack, I'm going to let you choke."

Dean gasped a couple of times, and managed to stop laughing. "Sorry, Sammy," he said, not sounding sorry at all, "But I don't remember the last time I laughed so much working a job."

"Well, can we just concentrate here?" asked Sam.

"It's funnier than that job in Idaho, the confectionery factory, where that ghost pelted you with marshmallows and you got one stuck up your nose..."

"Dean..."

"Or the cursed fairy tales book, where you read 'Rapunzel' to those five-year-old twins, and your hair grew six feet overnight and nothing would cut it and you had to plait it, this is funnier than that..."

"Dean..."

"And I even think it's funnier than that time when you pissed off that Avon witch, and you ended up with that beautiful smoky eyes makeover that wouldn't wash off, and we had to tell people that you were an Eddie Izzard fan..."

"Yeah, hilarious. So," continued Sam, glaring, "We have malformed vegetables, and the occasional trace of sulphur in the garden. That would suggest demon involvement."

"Yeah." Dean sobered up. "A demon would have the know-how to use this Wand of Bethany thing."

"The thing I don't get is, why?" wondered Sam. "Why would a demon go around messing with people's gardening? It's a bit tame for demonic activity. What's the motivation?"

"Maybe it's a demon who was made to eat too many vegetables by an overbearing mother when he was human?" suggested Dean. "Anyway, who's next?"

Sam peered at the list. "It's not far from here," he said. "Take the next right. And if you make any more puerile jokes, I swear I will punch you in the eggplants."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Dean didn't care about Sam's threats to damage his manhood – he was having too much fun. Every visit brought yet another hilarious naughty-bit-resembling fruit or vegetable, each funnier than the last. So he was quite disappointed when the garden of one Mr Reginald Chumley turned out to be completely unaffected. However, rather than being grateful, Mr Chumley was irate that the large vegetable competition had been cancelled.

Dean poked under leaves and followed vines and stalks, searching in vain for just one entertainingly anatomical gourd, while Sam talked to Mr Chumley. Jimi sniffed the yard, and found nothing.

"He did it on purpose," grumbled Dean, "He picked all the amusing ones before we got there, and hid them."

"No, Dean, I really don't think he did," sighed Sam. "He seemed more annoyed about the contest being cancelled than anything else. Doesn't that seem strange to you?"

"What seems strange to me is that one single garden out of so many is unaffected," answered Dean, "Which is why I think he was hiding the good stuff."

"I mean, if I had the only unaffected garden in the area, and the men from See-Rap showed up, I'd be asking them how to protect my plants, not complaining bitterly about some competition," mused Sam.

"Maybe he's one of those religious nuts, thinks that the human body is sinful," suggested Dean, "And he got sick of painting black rectangles on his vegetables every day, so instead he uproots them, carefully averting his eyes... did you think to check the refrigerator?"

"What?" Sam looked at him with an expression suggesting that it might finally be time for his big brother to take a little vacation in a residential facility, where the doors locked from the outside. "Why the hell would I be checking the refrigerator? What the hell would I expect to find in the refrigerator?"

"Soup. Lots and lots of vegetable soup. To rehabilitate the sinful vegetables. And hide them from the men from C.R.A.P."

"Dean..." _... where a kindly-but-no-nonsense middle-aged lady in a crisp uniform brought the meds every day..._

"Maybe he's got them in the freezer," continued Dean, "And he's going to start charging admission, it'll be an X-rated show, Busty Beets and Provocative Parsnips and Pert Pumpkins..."

"Dean..." _... and she's accompanied by a couple of burly orderlies..._

"Sammy, did you happen to notice whether he has a bead curtain over his freezer?"

_... And maybe the walls are soft..._ Sam rolled his eyes. "We need to figure out our next move." He eyed his brother. "You might need a nap – I think you're getting overtired." Sam wasn't completely kidding. Every morning so far on this job, Dean had woken up screaming, run into the bathroom, and then emerged sighing in relief – he clearly wasn't getting enough sleep, and refused to talk about it.

Before Dean could reply, his phone rang. It was Alfred. Sam only heard one side of the conversation, but watching the smile growing on Dean's face, he just knew that the call was about something that he wasn't going to like.

"Some good news, Sam," grinned Dean, shutting his phone, "The gardening club have decided to uncancel their contest. It's back on, but with a minor... modification."

"Really?" Sam gave his brother A Look. "You're about to tell me what the 'modification' is, aren't you? I'm not going to like it, am I?"

Dean grinned even more widely. "Yes, and no. Since so many gardens have been affected, they've decided to go with my suggestion of a contest to find the most amusing obscene vegetable!" he declared happily. "And they're going to call it 'It's Nobody I Know', just like I suggested!" He positively beamed at Sam. "And, even better..."

"I'm really not going to like this bit, am I?" groaned Sam.

"Nope, not in the least," smirked Dean. "I, the man from C.R.A.P., have been invited to be Special Guest Judge!"

_... and he's not even allowed to have plastic cutlery_... "Let me guess; you're really looking forward to that," sighed Sam in a resigned tone.

"Alfred wants me to drop by to discuss possible categories," explained Dean, "I'm thinking, maybe Rudest Root, Frisky Fruit, that sort of thing. Would it be too specialised to have Provocative Parsnip? I think I'm developing a fondness for parsnips. And pumpkins. Perky Pumpkins. Pert Pumpkins?"

_... and there's drugs, anti-pain-in-the-ass pills, and immaturity inhibitors, and shut-the-fuck-up-and-go-sleep tablets..._ "I think I'm getting a headache," said Sam. Jimi leaned forwards from the back seat and dropped a badly-shredded pair of blue tactical pants into his lap, and gave him a sympathetic "whuff".

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Back at the motel that night, they pondered their next move.

"Any luck on the research front?" asked Dean.

Sam shut the laptop with a snap and rubbed his eyes. "I cannot find any credible historic references to demonic interference with vegetables," he declared. "There's a disturbing description of a cauliflower dish prepared in an English boarding school in the 1700s, which I think probably has more to do with the thiocyanate content of brassica vegetables that the flatulence demons postulated by the students at the time. There was nothing like it in any of Bobby's books; if there had been, I'd have found it and remembered, because it would fall into the category of 'Nobody Could Make Up Something This Bizarre So It Must Be True'. What about you?"

Dean was poring over a map. "Well, there is something a bit weird," he muttered.

"What's weird, and how weird?" asked Sam.

"Somewhere between Iggy-Pop-From-Mars and Underwear-As-Hat on the weirdometer," Dean clarified. "All the gardens that have been affected by the Vegetable Viagra Virus are spread across quite a wide area," he waved at the spots on the map, "But Mr Reginald Chumley, whose garden remains distressingly free of suggestive vegies, is here. Bang smack in the middle." Dean checked his list of notes. "The dates on which the plants suddenly became pornographically imaginative line up like this... they started close to his house, and it travelled outwards, in a wave."

"So, Chez Reginald is ground zero, but unaffected," mused Sam, "How does that work? Did Jimi pick up anything in his yard?"

"Nope, no sulphur, no rude food, not so much as a snarl at an ugly garden gnome," replied Dean, patting the dog on the head. Jimi was still chewing on his police pants. "He seems to be enjoying those trousers," he continued, "He's chewed another pocket off. Do you think it means he's not getting enough fibre in his diet? He is a growing half-hellhound – what if we have to feed him the occasional police officer? That could get really awkward. Should we be feeding him more bacon?"

"I think it's telling us that the sooner he's neutered, the better," sniffed Sam, daring Dean to start that argument again. Dean shuddered slightly. "And you need to get some sleep."

"I gotta go see Alfred tomorrow about my judging gig," Dean smirked, "If nothing turns up, maybe we should go look around Mr Chumley's place again." He sat down on his bed. "I should probably drop Cas a p-mail, let him know what we're doing."

"Okay, but remember, don't use any crude language," Sam reminded him, heading for the bathroom.

Dean knelt by his bed, cleared his throat, and sent his p-mail.

"Now I lay me down to rest,  
To Castiel, this prayer's addressed.  
We've found peculiar happenings  
In many vegie gardenings,

Sammy thinks the Wand is here,  
But doesn't know the why, so we're  
Still looking for a motivation  
For the plantlife mutilation.

There's something pulling funny tricks  
That makes zucchinis look like... male appendages,  
And peppers look like ladies' bits,  
And pumpkins look like pairs of... assets,

There's sulphur dust that Jimi found,  
There could be demons lurking round.  
But nothing concrete yet, and so,  
We'll look some more, and let you know.

And if I die before I rise,  
I hope that Heaven's full of pies.  
Amen."


	8. Chapter 8

Thank you, dear wonderful slightly-twisted-but-in-such-marvellous-ways reviewers - your comments make me pathetically happy. Clearly I'm a simple creature... the Chocolate Powered Update Inspiration Fairy has been on holiday, and there's the ghastly business of being required to turn up to work during the week (it's an outrage!), but I hope we'll have this one finished off soon.

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**Chapter 8**

_Sam was watching the second episode of the series 'The Private Life Of Plants' when he heard a soft knock on the door. It was Nurse Aliah. _

"_I'm not actually here to check on you, Sam," she told him, a small pleading smile in her face, "I'm here because, well, we're having some difficulty with your brother..."_

"_Oh, no," groaned Sam, "What's he done now?"_

"_He's being a most non-compliant patient," she sighed. "He sulks, he uses bad language, he makes hurtful remarks, he pulls the most offensive faces. He nearly had poor Orgle in tears yesterday. The immaturity inhibitors Dr Uphir prescribed initially weren't effective, so he's supposed to be starting a new medication, but now he's refusing to take them."_

"_Okay, maybe I can help," Sam said, following Nurse Aliah._

_It was a much nicer place than the locked wards that Sam had ever had cause to visit Topside: the room was large, light and airy, with the hard surfaces discreetly padded. Dean was wearing scrubs, sitting with a face like thunder and his arms crossed, between two fiends, massive demonic beasts, the size of Kodiak bears, wearing neat orderlies' uniforms, and despairing expressions. One of them carefully held a small tray with pill bottles on it in its massive taloned paws._

"_Dean," rumbled one of the fiends gently, "It's time to take your meds."_

"_Nope," scowled Dean._

"_Please, Dean," asked the other in a quiet reasonable voice, "They're to help you get better."_

"_Don't wanna," grumbled Dean, with a pout that would put a supermodel to shame._

_The first fiend sighed. "We've discussed this, Dean," it pointed out, "Dr Uphir has prescribed them for you, to help you get better. You don't mind Dr Uphir, do you?"_

"_S'pose," sulked Dean, glowering._

"_Didn't you say yesterday that for a hell-spawned fucking demonic monster bitch brainfucker shrink, he was an okay kind of guy?"_

"_S'pose," repeated Dean sullenly._

"_So, he wants to help you," said the second fiend. "Please take your meds."_

"_Don't wanna take stupid poisoned meds full of poisonous poison!" humphed Dean._

"_They're not poison, Dean, they're medicine," explained the first fiend patiently. "We went through this, remember? Would you feel more comfortable if Orgle ate some first?" _

"_That's a good idea, Vorz," smiled the other one, "You give me one of each, and I'll eat them to show that they're not poisonous." Vorz carefully manoeuvred a pill out of each bottle with a claw. _

"_Look, this one's your Jerkoval," the fiend called Orgle popped the pill, "This one is Assholnil," the second pill disappeared, "And this one is your Argrowup." Orgle swallowed the third pill, and smacked several of his lips._

"_See?" said Orgle the fiend happily, "Nothing to be afraid of." Vorz proffered the tiny plastic cup._

"_No." Dean was unmoved by their demonstration. Vorz make a wistful face._

"_Please, Dean."_

"_No."_

"_It's medicine to help you, Dean," Orgle chided gently, twisting his great clawed paws together anxiously._

"_Go fuck yourself, Orgle."_

_Orgle's face fell. "There's no need to be rude," he rumbled quietly, his deep voice trembling and a couple of his lower lips wobbling perilously, "Making fun of my anatomical peculiarities is completely uncalled for, and very mean."_

"_Oh, for God's sake," Sam rolled his eyes and indicated that Nurse Aliah should unlock the door. He strode in and stood glaring at Dean._

"_What's this about you not taking your meds?" he demanded. "Did I just hear you abuse a member of the staff?"_

"_It's okay, Sam," smiled Orgle ruefully, "It goes with the territory."_

_Sam glared at his brother. "Take your pills, Dean."_

"_Don't wanna," Dean whined._

_Vorz waved a bottle of beer. "Dr Uphir said you could have a beer to wash them down," he coaxed._

_Dean stuck his tongue out at Vorz, who looked shocked._

"_Oh, come on, guys," Sam said to the giant fiends, "You're bigger than him, just make him take them!"_

_Both the fiends gasped, their eyes wide with horror._

"_What?" asked Orgle incredulously, "Lay hands on a patient?"_

"_Force and coercion are short-term, clumsy solutions," announced Vorz primly, "And do nothing to engender trust or respect between patients and staff. We want Dean to understand that the medications are prescribed for his own benefit, right Dean?"_

_Dean said something suggesting that Vorz's parents, if he'd had any, were not married, and in fact were possibly related by blood._

"_Dean," said Sam firmly, "Take the damned pills."_

"_Nope." _

"_Take – the – damned – pills."_

"_I'm not taking any pills, Sam, because I don't need aaaAAAAAAARRRRRF-GH!" In a single practised move, Sam scooped up the small pill cup, pinched Dean's nose and lifted, tossed the pills into his mouth then grabbed his jaw and held it shut until his big brother swallowed convulsively. Dean stood staring at him, eyes slightly crossed. Then..._

"_He grabbed my nose!" he shrieked in outrage, "He grabbed my nose, Orgle, he grabbed my nose, he grabbed my nooooooooose!" The last word turned into a wail, and Dean buried his face in the matted fur of Orgle's flank. The giant beast gave Sam a reproachful look._

"_Now look what you've done," he said reprovingly, putting two of his large, multi-jointed arms around Dean and patting him gently on the back. "You've upset him." Muffled howls of "He grabbed my noooooooose!" filtered out through Orgle's fur, while the fiend made soothing shushing noises._

"_Oh, dear," muttered Vorz anxiously, "Do you think he needs a sedative shot?"_

"_That's a good idea," replied Orgle, rubbing Dean's back gently, "What do you think, Dean? Vorz will get you a shot to make you feel better?"_

_Dean sniffled and turned to glare at Sam. "He grabbed my nose," he muttered accusingly._

"_Yes, he did," agreed Orgle soothingly, "Wasn't that mean of him? Look here's Vorz with your shot..."_

_Vorz reappeared with a bottle of JD, and filled a shot glass. "Here you are, Dean," he smiled, "You take this for me... good boy!" he praised as Dean downed the shot, hiccupped gently, and handed the glass back. "Now, you take these until you feel sleepy, okay?"_

"_Okay," agreed Dean, reaching for the refilled glass. "You leave my nose alone," he told Sam sternly._

"_Come on Sam," prompted Aliah at his elbow, "It's time for your sandwich."_

Sam woke up and yawned, vaguely disappointed that he'd woken before his sandwich had arrived. Cheese too close to bedtime was supposed to cause strange dreams; maybe that last piece of pizza so late hadn't been a good idea...

He glanced over at Dean. _Oh, no, not again_; his big brother was gasping and twitching, clearly in the grip of another nightmare. Jimi looked to Sam, and whined softly.

"Keep an eye on him for me, will you?" he said to the dog. Jimi got up off his blanket, and moved to sit beside Dean's bed.

Sam was just emerging from the bathroom when Dean suddenly sat bolt upright, screamed in terror, and shoved both hands down his shorts. Jimi, eager to be involved in whatever was happening, shoved his nose eagerly into Dean's crotch, making him scream again.

"Jesus, Dean," winced Sam, eyeing his brother dubiously, "No more late night cheesy pizza for you..."

Dean looked wildly around the room, then relaxed, letting out a gasping sigh. "Oh, thank fuck for that," he muttered, looking down at Jimi and elbowing his head away. "Hey, no handling the merchandise, J-Man, some things only the ladies get to touch."

"Or you, apparently," grinned Sam. Dean yanked his hands out of his shorts, his face colouring slightly. "Seriously, though, bro," Sam continued, losing the grin, "That's every night now for nearly a week. You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, Sam, it was just a nightmare," Dean answered quickly.

"Because if you ever want to talk about it, you know..." Sam told him quietly.

"Er, no, um, I'm good, Sammy," mumbled Dean, his face flushing a bit more. "Just a strange dream. Nothing to worry about."

"God, Dean, you and your damned macho-man act," humphed Sam in exasperation, running a hand through his hair, "It doesn't sound like nothing. I worry about you! If it's nothing to worry about, why do you wake up screaming as though somebody was cutting your balls off?"

One of Dean's eyes twitched.

"Nyeerp," he went.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Get dressed," he sighed, "You can continue your stoic act over breakfast. If I'm going to worry myself to death over you, which apparently is the real destiny that Fate has in mind for me and the Apocalypse was just practice, I'd rather do it on a full stomach."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Right, stay in the car," Sam instructed Jimi, "Stay. No messing with the fabric of the space-time continuum. No chasing any being of any species up trees, no stealing of any foodstuffs, and – I want to be totally clear on this one – no tearing anybody's trousers off. Not even if their trousers are made of bacon and they've been rolling in meat paste. Is that clear?"

"Oooooh, Sammy, I bet the girls would love it when you go all Alpha Male," grinned Dean, who had brightened up considerably at the thought of breakfast. Jimi turned on the Big Brown Eyes, oozing eager obedience, and managing to convey the impression that he would of course wait patiently until his Pack returned, and that while he was always deliriously happy to see them, he would be absolutely ecstatic if they could see their way clear to bringing him a rasher or two of bacon. Preferably with a bit of maple syrup on it.

"So, you're determined to go ahead with judging the obscene vegetables, then?" asked Sam in a resigned tone.

"Absolutely," garbled Dean, talking through a mouthful. "Admittedly, judging the Miss Bikini Jelly Wrestling Championship would've been even better, but this is pretty good. It'll be fun! You should come along, you might have fun too. You never want me to have fun. Why do want me to live a life devoid of anything that might be in any way fun? Just because you never do anything fun, you don't want me to have any fun either. You are the fun nun. What is that?"

"Chicken and avocado wrap," replied Sam, "And I DO do things that are fun."

"No, Sam, you don't," Dean shook his head. "Spending the day going through the archives of legal diaries from the 1800s in the Town Hall of Bumfuck, Wisconsin does not constitute fun. That's O.C.D., not F.U.N. Visiting exhibitions of Victorian death photography is not fun. For us, it's not even creepy. Finding a hot chick and spending an entire evening discussing whether or not Naomi Wolf is the obvious third-wave descendant of Greer, then shaking her hand goodnight? That's not fun, Sammy, that's... criminal inaction! An unforgiveable neglect of your God-granted talents. The way you can hold forth about feminism, you could get two of them into your bed at once. Losing an afternoon in the stacks of some obscure reference library is not fun. Unless you're jerking off in there, which actually I hope you do, because I suspect you find books more stimulating that women, and while that's sad it's better than the thought that you don't jerk off at all. I've given up on hoping you'll ever get laid ever again, but I'm starting to think you don't even remember how to jerk off anymore. Do you remember how to do that?"

"What the hell kind of question is that?" bristled Sam.

"It's the question of someone who is concerned about the well-being of his baby brother," replied Dean sadly. "I'm as worried as hell. When was the last time you jerked off, Sam?"

"You'll find out next time you go to put your winter socks on," replied Sam serenely, looking out the window and ignoring Dean as he choked on a mouthful of bacon. "Dean, did you leave the window down for Jimi?"

"Er, yeah, just an inch or two," his brother answered between coughs, "Why?"

"He appears to be in the park, playing with a couple of kids," observed Sam. "One of them threw a stick. You might want to go get him."

"Awww, can't we let him play for a bit, Sam? Are you determined to stop the dog having fun, too? How much trouble can he get into fetching a stick?"

"Okay, it's your call," said Sam, "But I think you should know, that kid might've thrown a stick, but Jimi has fetched a telegraph pole."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Alfred was tending a garden bed when they arrived to talk about the 'It's Nobody I Know' pornographic produce contest.

"It's amazing," he said, "The word's only been out for a couple of days, and we've had a huge response. Everybody wants to enter their, er, more suggestive vegetables."

Alfred's wife Georgina came into the living room with coffee, and a tray of tiny pumpkin pie tarts. "Just so you know," she smiled, winking at Dean, "It's traditional for the ladies to try to bribe the judge by proving that the produce tastes good, too."

Sam winced as Dean fell upon a tart with a facial expression that was probably similar to the one that Castiel associated with Special Cuddles.

"Ohhhh, Georgina, I think you've won the Pert Pumpkin class already," he moaned, "Bribe me, bribe me some more!" She laughed, and pushed the plate towards him.

It's going to be the biggest fundraiser we've ever run! It's very good of you to be our judge."

"Well, it's for a good cause, isn't it?" smiled Dean. "So how many entries are we looking at?"

"I've got more coming in all the time, as word gets around," answered Alfred, brandishing a handful of paper. "I thought you might want to have a look at the details, decide how to divide them up..."

Dean scanned the list. "There seems to be a lot of interest in parsnips," he chortled. "I have to tell you, though, we visited Gemma Riley, and I don't know if anybody will be able to beat her Mr and Mrs Parsnip couple..."

"Is that Reginald Chumley on there?" asked Sam, scanning the list over Dean's shoulder. The Andrewses exchanged a look.

"Yeah, Reg has entered," sighed Alfred. "He was so angry about it when we cancelled the first contest I didn't think we'd hear from him. Last I heard, his garden wasn't affected, but I guess it caught up with him too."

Georgina was less tactful. "He takes this whole thing way too seriously," she frowned, "It's meant to be a fun day, and it is for everybody except him."

"Now, Georgie," began Alfred, but she ignored him.

"It's true," she insisted, "He's a bad sport, and a sore loser." She looked ruefully to Dean. "If he doesn't win something, be prepared for a spot of bad language."

The Winchesters exchanged a look themselves. "Well, we'll get out of your hair," announced Dean, "And I'll give some thought to grouping the, er, hopefuls."

Alfred saw them out, and went back to his gardening. "Really, I prefer my vegetable patch," he confided, "But Georgie gets on my case if I don't look after the flowers, too. She loves her rhododendrons."

"We'll leave you to it then... what are you feeding them there?" asked Sam, as Alfred sprinkled a handful from a small packet around the roots of a large flowering shrub.

"They need sulphur, to keep the soil a bit acidic," he explained as he sprinkled.

Sam blinked. "Do many plants need sulphur?" he asked.

"Well, not many in this garden," replied Alfred, "The azaleas, and the blueberries, and I'll have to do the potatoes out the back soon."

"Thank you, Alfred," said Dean, "I'll get back to you about the contest soon."

They headed back to the car, where Jimi would be waiting.

"Oh, no," groaned Dean, "People sprinkle sulphur on their gardens? Deliberately? On purpose?"

"Looks like it," said Sam glumly.

"So they all had a meeting, and decided to do this to mess with us? Is that it?" Dean sounded exasperated. "We're thinking 'demon' and everybody else is thinking 'rhododendron' or 'potato'?"

"I don't think we should take it personally," Sam told him, "But I do think we should check out Reg Chumley's place again. I thought he seemed overly annoyed about the first cancellation."

"Yeah," agreed Dean, "The man with the abnormally normal garden. So normal, it's not normal. And suddenly, a new contest is announced, and he has obscene vegetables ready to go. Either he has stashed all the good stuff in his freezer, or he's planning to mess with his garden."

"Sounds like we might be homing in on this Wand of Bethany," nodded Sam.

"We'll check it out tonight," decided Dean, "But you'd better be careful, Beanpole, there's no telling what he might turn you into... er, where's the dog?" he finished, looking into the Impala. It was conspicuously empty of Jimi.

They heard a bark, and looked up just in time to see Jimi chasing a mail truck at the end of the street. The truck turned a corner, with Jimi in hot pursuit.

"What the hell?" muttered Dean to himself, getting in and starting the car, "Dogs are supposed to chase mailmen, not mail trucks!"

He pulled a U-turn, tyres squealing, to follow the truck, but when they got to the intersection, both truck and Jimi were gone.

"Which way did they go?" Sam looked around desperately for any indication, "Which way did they go? Jimi! JIMI!"

"Get back in," ordered Dean grimly, "We'll head back towards town, it's probably between depots, so..." his voice trailed off as Jimi reappeared, trotting back towards them.

Sam huffed in relief. "Where have you been?" he called to the dog. "You can't just take off like that whenever you feel like it! Chasing traffic is naughty!"

"What's he got there?" asked Dean, seeing that Jimi was carrying something.

A look of horror formed on Sam's face. "Please tell me he hasn't stolen something from the truck," he pleaded, "Jimi, you didn't go into the truck and steal mail, did you?"

Jimi sat in front of Dean and dropped what he was carrying at his feet, then looked up with a doggy grin, clearly pleased with himself. Dean picked the item up, and sighed.

"Oh, Jimi," he said despairingly, "Again with the trousers..."

* * *

Every time you leave a review, poor Orgle gets a day off. Working in mental health services is a tough gig. Help him out, huh?


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

As the evening darkened, they sat in the Impala: Sam tapped away on his laptop, while Jimi chewed on his pair of US Postal Service uniform trousers.

"A few more days," muttered Sam to himself as much as the dog, "And it's the ol' snipperoo for you, Jimi. If only I can work out how to convince Dr Wooley to do the same for Dean, my life will become so much simpler..."

Jimi heard the reproach in Sam's voice, and gave him a contrite look, but clearly didn't feel guilty enough to stop chewing on the purloined pants.

"I wonder if you get it from Dean," Sam sighed, "Since he was your dad's... 'progenitor'. That would be weird. Alarmingly plausible, but still weird."

"What's weird?" asked Dean, returning from a reconnoitre of Reginald Chumley's backyard, "And how weird? Invasion-Of-The-Iggy-Pops-From-Mars weird, or Reg-Chumley-still-has-the-one-unaffected-vegetable-patch-in-the-area weird?"

"I was just wondering where Jimi got his immature, thoughtless and precocious sexual behavioural tendencies from," Sam explained, "It's probably something he's inherited from you."

"Me?" exclaimed Dean, looking perplexed, "How the hell is it my fault?"

"Well, apart from you indulging his antics, you're practically his grandfather," Sam pronounced matter-of-factly.

Dean gaped at him. "Not quite sure how to take that, coming from you," he said carefully. "I've been called an animal before, but that's always been by a chick, and it's never been a complaint..."

"You were the one who summoned Jimi Senior and made him over in your own image, O Prankmeister," Sam reminded him, "Which makes you this pup's grandsire. If we ever have to fake up a pedigree for him, God knows what we'll put you down as. Winchester Pretty Boy? Winchester Garbage Guts? Winchester Bossy Britches, maybe."

"Winchester Sex God," suggested Dean with a smirk.

"Oh, look, Jimi's panty raid made the local news site," continued Sam. " 'Phantom Dog Stole My Pants, Says Mail Driver'." He scanned the article, then turned and gave Jimi a glare. "Frankly, the sooner you get neutered, the sooner humanity can sleep soundly. Or drive their trucks soundly. Telegraph poles, stud bulls and male police horses can breathe a sigh of relief."

"You are starting to worry me," Dean grumped, "You have anxiety about other guys' balls"

"Dean, Jimi is not an 'other guy', he's a dog!"

"He is so a guy! Honorarily. He's one of the guys. Even if he is a dog. Mostly. If I'm his grandpa, he's a quarter human. Ish. Kind of. Anyway, you are obsessed with his balls. You have two of your own, you know, if you'd just get to know them again, I'm sure they'd forgive you."

"Maybe you're right," mused Sam, "Maybe I should take your advice, follow your example: from now on, the first thing I do every morning will be to let out a blood-curdling scream and shove my hands down my boxers, so I can be a well-adjusted individual, just like you."

Dean hoped Sam wouldn't see the stricken look on his face. "At least I only have parsnip envy... we should get closer so we can watch the yard. There's gaps in the fence."

The bickering continued _sotto vocce_ as they made their way across the street, but it stopped when Jimi suddenly put his nose to the nature strip.

"What is it, fella?" asked Sam, as Jimi criss-crossed the grass, sniffing.

Dean pulled out his flashlight, and it landed on a large, yellowed patch of lawn. He bent down to examine it.

"This wasn't here first time we visited," he noted, as Jimi moved on. "There's something else here, too..."

Not far from the discoloured patch was a small but definite sprinkling of powder. Dean sniffed at it.

"Sulphur," he said in a confused voice. "Why would somebody be putting sulphur on the nature strip?" As he spoke, Jimi began to dig.

"Lawn grass isn't something that needs acidic soil," supplied Sam, who'd done some research on acid-loving plants after The Debacle Of The Non-Demonic Garden Sulphur, "And there are no flowers planted out here... what's he after?" Jimi continued to dig with determination, until his paws hit something. Something wooden. Dean turned his flashlight on the excavation.

"Oh, shit," he muttered, hunkering down to pick up the small box – a cigar box, he noted, with an involuntary shudder – and opened it.

"This is an intersection," Sam said, almost to himself, looking around, "Reg's house is on a corner. A crossroads. I never even thought about it." He looked back to Dean. "Fuck, there _is_ a damned demon. Somebody made a deal."

Dean inspected the contents of the box. It contained a gardening glove, a tape measure, and...

"A packet of parsnip seeds?" His voice radiated confusion. "What the hell kind of deal are we talking about, here?"

Sam was about to shrug in equal confusion when they heard raised voices coming from Reg Chumley's backyard. One was Reginald's; the other was that of a young woman. They made their way to the fence to listen in.

"... win that damned contest!" Reg said angrily, "That was the deal!"

"If the contest was cancelled due to lack of entries, that's not my problem, Reggie," said a female voice.

Peering through gaps in the palings, the Winchesters saw an angry Reginald Chumley arguing with an attractive young woman. She stood, hands on hips, a small stick in one hand.

"Well, you can damned well salvage this by waving your little magic wand at _my_ vegetable patch," he growled at her, "Thirty years I've waited to win this thing, I'm damned if I'll lose now because some smartass demon has decided to hide behind the fine print!"

"Oh, you're damned all right, Reggie," the pretty young thing cooed venomously, "But I'll tell you what, I like a laugh as much as the next hellspawned abomination, so I'm going to help you, out of the goodness of my shrivelled and rotting unbeating heart."

"Fine," snarled Reg, "I want vegetables that will make priests blush and maiden aunts faint! When I come out here tomorrow morning, I want a garden full of produce that could get me arrested in at least a dozen states, you understand?"

"Frankly, no," the demon answered him, "I do not understand why anyone would make a deal for something so petty, but I'll give you a harvest that would make Ron Jeremy cry and Dr Ruth hand back her degree." She turned from him, and raised the stick.

Jimi's eyes lit up, and with a happy woof, he ran through the fence, leaped, and grabbed the wand from the demon's hand.

"Jimi!" called Dean anxiously, clambering over the fence with Sam hot on his heels. Reginald and the demon both stared and blinked.

"It's the men from C.R.A.P.," said Reg bemusedly, "What are you doing here?"

"Being just in time to stop you from doing something unbelievably stupid, from the sound of it," growled Dean.

The demon rolled her eyes, then let out an extremely Samesque huff.

They're not the men from C.R.A.P., Reggie, although they might be full of it," she sighed in an exasperated voice, "They're Hunters. They're here to try to ruin your deal. Or at the very least, ruin my week. They see me dealin', they hatin'. Seriously. I'm just a hardworking crossroads demon, trying to make ends meet, and there's always some asshole who wants to spoil everything. God hates me. Is that your dog?" she demanded. She glared at Jimi, who danced playfully out of her reach as she snatched at the stick. "Give me that, you thieving mutt!"

"How did you get hold of that?" asked Sam.

"The Wand?" said the demon, making another grab for it. "Bad dog! Huh, through stupidity, in hindsight. 'Potential for enormous destruction,' my flayed ass! I'm gonna kill that hustling fiend... your dog is really badly behaved, you know that? You should get him fixed. _Give that back_!"

"The only thing that's gonna get fixed here tonight is you, sweetheart," Dean smirked at her.

"No, I really don't think so," she smiled viciously, eyes flashing red, "Give me that Wand back, give it _here_ you _mangy pooch_!" Jimi zipped past her, clearly enjoying himself enormously.

"He's not mangy!" Dean shot back angrily, "He had a wash in low-allergen soap-free oatmeal wash for sensitive skin just a week ago!"

Understanding dawned on Sam's face, followed quickly by irritation. "So that's where my shower gel went," he muttered, his eyes narrowing at his brother.

"Not now, Sam!" yelped Dean, "Just recite!"

"This is not over," Sam scowled at him before turning to the demon_, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…"_

The demon winced and grabbed at her head. "Aaaaargh! You are really annoying, you know that?" she shouted irritably. "Right, no more Miss Manners! Rex! Get me that Wand, then deal with these two douchebags. " Her eyes narrowed and she smiled unpleasantly, pointing at Jimi. "Fetch!"

From the corner of the yard, a low, rumbling growl sounded. It travelled through the ground rather than through the air. Sam stopped mid-exorcism.

"Oh, shit," he breathed.

"I'll see your oh shit, and raise you a fucking fuck," Dean hissed back, backing up to stand with his brother.

In the last of the evening light, they could see the sharp divots being clawed in the ground as something stalked forward...

"What the hell is that?" squeaked Reginald.

"Hellhound," growled Dean. As he spoke, a steaming yellowed patch appeared on the lawn.

"What the...?" asked Sam, peering at the mysterious blemish in the grass. The demon rolled her eyes.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe it," she sighed, "You get them into this realm of existence, and all of a sudden they have weak bladders."

"The hellhound left the patches in people's gardens?" queried Sam.

"'Fraid so, Stretch," she confirmed. "Travelling with a hellhound in the physical plane is just one doggy Depends moment after another. It's worse if they get excited, they set things on fire, and can't that be damned inconvenient..."

"Tell me about it," muttered Dean distractedly, "Sam, we head for the car, there's iron shot in the trunk, we need JIMI GET BACK HERE!"

Jimi shot forward, planted himself in front of the hellhound, splayed his front feet and waggled his rump in the air. With all the abandon of one of Nature's true optimists, he whuffed happily.

The indistinct form seemed to pause. Sam took a moment to be amazed that a patch of empty space managed to radiate a sense of... confusion. There was another growl, but it had a decided undertone of bewilderment.

"What the hell is he doing?" asked Dean.

"If I didn't know better," began Sam slowly, "I'd say that Jimi's posture right now is classic dogspeak for an invitation to play..."

Jimi barked, a short high-pitched sound, and wagged his tail furiously.

The demon was furious. "Get me that damned Wand!" she shrieked. The hellhound leaped, grabbed the other end of the stick – and the tug-of-war was on.

"Jimi! Let go! For fuck's sake, let go!" shouted Dean, as Jimi was waved through the air like a balloon on a stick in the hand of a giant invisible child. "Make with the exorcism, Sam!"

"Er, _omnis satanica potestas_ ," Sam picked up again, ducking as Jimi whizzed past, growling determinedly.

The demon was utterly irate. "Get me that fucking Wand!" she screamed, gesturing at Jimi as he sailed past at her head height. A giant pumpkin from the vegetable patch detached itself from its vine and sailed through the air. Jimi twisted on his end of the stick and it missed him. The pumpkin landed with a very wet and very productive 'splat'.

"._..omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis _AAAAARGH!" yelped Sam as a generous spray of pumpkin puree hit him.

"Just finish it!" Dean yelled back, as the air was suddenly thick with flying oversized and overripe vegetables hurled by an overangry demon. He let out a squawk as a ballistic zucchini missed Jimi and exploded on the ground just in front of him.

"..._omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta_ _diabolicaaaa_AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH OHGROSSIT'SINMYHAIR!" howled Sam, as another airborne zucchini hit him in the head.

"Ow! Sonofabitch!" snapped Dean, wiping green goo from his face as a decidedly more solid parsnip smacked into his leg. Jimi wriggled and twisted on his end of the stick whilst he was zooming through the air, until, with a snap, the Wand broke.

The demon was incandescent with rage. "YOU BROKE MY WAND!" she screamed, as Jimi picked himself up and shook vigorously, sending vegetable mash flying in all directions. "YOU BROKE MY FUCKING WAND!" She turned to the hellhound. "Get them! Tear them apart!"

"Come on!" shouted Dean, grabbing Sam, who was trying unsuccessfully to wipe mashed vegetable out of his hair, "Jimi! JIMI! We are LEAVING! JIMI!"

Jimi wasn't listening: he planted himself between his Pack and the demonic threat, just the way his daddy had done...

Then he put his nose in the air, and sauntered casually towards the wavering shape in the air.

The hellhound let out a rumble like an angry earthquake with indigestion, as Jimi continued his fearless strut straight towards it.

"What the fuck are you doing?" shrieked the demon, almost incoherent with rage, "Tear the fleabag to pieces!"

Apparently, Jimi wasn't the only canine companion who wasn't following orders. There was a moment of stillness; Jimi's nose reached up, and the hovering haze in the air moved down, and...

Dean stared with horrified fascination. "Are they..." he began, "Are they... is Jimi _sniffing_ that thing's _butt_?" Sam's face was the colour of runny oatmeal.

Three humans and one possessed body gawped, mouths gaping, eyes bugging, as Jimi gave another high-pitched bark, then wagged his tail, and, kind of... jumped...

"That's... that's..." Sam's mouth hung open and his face drained of its last vestiges of colour, as Jimi hung in the air, four feet off the ground, doing... something... reciprocating.

"What the...?" Reginald Chumley looked like a man who had stared into Hell, and seen his mother-in-law wearing something skimpy and lacy. And crotchless.

"It's... it's..." Sam tried – and failed – again to articulate what was taking place.

"...Special Cuddles," shrugged Dean, tilting his head. "Wow. That's seriously weird. What with hellhounds being, you know, invisible..."

"Lucifer's purulent cock," breathed the demon, mouth hanging open in horror, "That's... that's... oh shit, I think my meatsuit is about to puke..." her short-term forecasting proved to be accurate, and she doubled over into a flowering shrub.

Dean tilted his head the other way. "Oh, hey, I get it now," he mumbled vaguely.

"Nhuh?" the probably interrogative noise came from Sam.

"Dr Wooley has made slightly, um, burlesque references to 'lipstick' before, and..."

"Nrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh" went Sam, causing Dean to wonder if that was the sound of his baby brother's brain imploding, or just his mind boggling. He'd check that later; right now, he couldn't stop watching the canine copulatory train crash – it was so dreadful he just couldn't look away...

"I mean," he wondered out loud, "He's like a Shetland pony stallion tackling a Clydesdale, only without the fruit box to stand on. How does he do that, without, you know, spraining it or something?"

The mortified silence was broken only by Jimi's happy panting, a gentle rumbling like an extremely satisfied-sounding earthquake, and the demon's vigorous retching in the shrubbery.

Sam's chest started to hitch.

"No!" ordered Dean, "No sympathetic puking, Sam! Don't you dare puke!"

"Bleeeeergl," agreed Sam, settling for passing out instead.

"Oh, Hell's bum!" griped Dean, catching his not-so-little brother and lowering him to the ground amongst the pulped remains of various vegetable missiles, "Where were we up to? _Ergo draco maledictus... maledictus? Maledicte_, fuck it, _et omnis legio diabolica_ – pfah, fucking pumpkin guts _– legio diabolica adjuramus tuo. Te,_ _adjuamus te_, fucking declensions, wake up, Sam, I need your Upstairs brain here... _cessa decipere humanas creaturas, _are you even listening to me, you rude bitch?" he snapped at the demon.

She turned to him with a face as green as the shrubbery. "I'm outta here," she grated, "If I'm lucky, I'll find a sympathetic colleague who will gouge my eyes out and rip the very memories of... of..._ that_," and she waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the coital couple, "out of my brain with red-hot pliers..." with a last gasping retch, the column of black smoke fled its host and headed Downstairs.

"Come on, Sammy," encouraged Dean, patting Sam's face as Jimi slid back to ground level, "The nasty poochy porn is over, the demon's gone, our work here is done." Jimi joined him, licking Sam's face until the younger Winchester stirred.

"That's it," encouraged Dean, "Think of libraries, Sam, lovely quiet libraries, floor to ceiling shelves, all those dry stuffy books with absolutely no copies of the Kama Sutra among them..."

Sam sat up carefully. "Is it safe to look?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yep, the show's over, and Elvis – er, Elvira, actually, I suppose – appears to have left the building," Dean told him, looking around and seeing that the hellhound was gone. "The love 'em and leave 'em type, hey, Jimi? They're the best sort, aren't they, boy?" The dog just offered him a happy whuff, and looked slightly smug.

Sam stood up slowly, pulling pieces of pumpkin out of his hair. "There's seeds," he groused, "They're all sticky."

Reginald Chumley stood looking around the wreckage of his garden in bewilderment. "What about my garden? What about the contest?" he asked in a plaintive voice.

"Oh, dear, so sorry about that, Reggie," started Dean in what Sam recognised as a dangerously pleasant tone, "We do apologise profusely for saving you from a deal damning your soul to eternal torment and despair, but I'll make it up to you. If you show up at this contest, just enter yourself in the special class I'm going to create especially for you, called Human With A Brain Most Resembling A Fucking Vegetable, and I guarantee you that you'll win. Okay? You're welcome. Come on Sam," he put a hand on Sam's shoulder, and steered him out of the yard and back to the car.

"Here," he told his brother, handing him a greasy rag from the trunk, "Try to wipe as much guacamole off yourself as you can."

"Gazpacho," said Sam faintly, wiping fairly ineffectively at himself, "It's more like gazpacho. Guacamole is avocado-based."

"Well, at least the ol' Upstairs Brain is still working, college boy," grinned Dean, trying to wipe down a wriggling Jimi. "Hey, hold still, you! Good thing we did this job before he undergoes his ritual genital mutilation, huh?"

"It only worked because Rex was actually Regina," grumbled Sam, in no mood for an argument. It had been a traumatising evening. He hoped he'd be able to get to sleep – he had a feeling that he was going to need a double session with Dr Uphir, and a really big plate of sandwiches.

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Reviews are the guacamole on The Nachos Of Life.


	10. Chapter 10

**WARNING: **Just so you know, I'm an atheist who was sent to an Anglican school - I'm going to do some reinterpretation of a certain religious book here. If you take This Sort Of Thing seriously, you'll probably be offended. I don't know why, because clearly I'm the one going to hell, but I know how Fundies react... incidentally, I'm married to a traddy Catholic. He hears Mass in Latin. We have all sorts of fun with Jehovah's Witnesses when they knock on our door: "I'm sorry, we have an atheist and a traditional Catholic here - I think you're self-deluding idiots, and he thinks you're heretics who should be set on fire..." Anyway, for anyone who's not hung up about Special Imaginary Friends, let's read on...

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Chapter 10

"Here, drink this," ordered Dean, proffering the chipped mug. Sam dropped the towel he'd been using to scrub at his hair – "Damn, I still don't think I got all the seeds out" – and peered at the drink.

"What's this?" he asked suspiciously.

"Camomile tea. To help you recover from the terrible shock to your nervous system," Dean told him. Sam sipped carefully, and made a face.

"Blerh! That's not camomile tea!"

"Yes it is!" Dean stated adamantly, "I made it for you. Girly-hair delicate little fainting-flower camomile tea. With some medicine in it. It's good for you."

"Medicine? What medicine?" demanded Sam, narrowing his eyes at his brother.

"Just a teeny little dose of Dr Jasper Newton Daniel's Ethanol-Based Anxiolytic Solution," answered Dean.

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Dean, this does not even qualify as tea with booze in it…"

"It's not booze when you put it in tea, Sam – that's medicine," declared Dean firmly.

"Whatever, it's not tea with 'medicine', it's a cup of JD, and maybe you waved a teabag over it, but…"

"Just drink it, Junior," directed Dean, "I want your delicate sensibilities adequately recovered for my judging gig tomorrow."

"Look, why don't I stay here, you don't want me hanging around ruining your puerile amusement," suggested Sam, "I've been working on a translation for Bobby, and I've reached a particularly intellectually engaging passage…"

"You are coming with me and Jimi," Dean informed him, in a tone that brooked no argument, "The fun nun is going to throw off his wimple – you are coming with me and you will have fun, whether you enjoy it or not."

Sam blinked at his brother. "Did you hear what you just said?"

"C'mon, Sam, it's vegetables! You like vegetables! You admire vegetables! You enjoy vegetables! You practically live on vegetables! If you didn't move around so much, I might think you were a vegetable. If you ever have kids, it will be by vegetative reproduction, seeing as you are determined never to get laid again…"

"All right! All right!" agreed Sam, "I'll come with you, if only to shut you up. I'll even hold your clipboard."

"Great," smiled Dean, "You can be my steward. We'll get you a badge that says 'Judge's Assistant'. Or 'Judge's Bitch', maybe."

"Be still my beating taste buds," muttered Sam, turning on his laptop as Dean called Jimi.

"Me and the J-Man will go clean up," said Dean, peeling off his vegetable-impregnated clothes and heading for the bathroom, "I expect you to have taken your medicine by the time we finish," he instructed. Sam flipped him off.

The noises from the bathroom were those usually associated with the dog having a bath: the last-ditch reluctant whining, the stern order from Dean that Jimi man up and get in the tub, a bit of splashing, then the gurgling _whoonk whoonk_ of the waterlogged toy Jimi chewed on for distraction, and finally, the cheerful rendition of the Rubber Ducky song.

Sam was removing a tenacious pumpkin seed from his hair while a slow page loaded, when he heard Jimi bark twice sharply. That was followed by a bang, a very loud 'SPLOSH' and Dean's yelp of "Yaaaaaaarghsonofabitch!"

Sam crossed the room, and knocked on the bathroom door. "Dean? You okay in there?"

It was only when he heard Dean exclaim in exasperation, "Dude, how many times do I have to say it? PERSONAL – SPACE," that he pushed the door open.

Dean sat at one end of the tub in his boxers, with Jimi in front of him. Castiel sat in the other end, wearing a serious expression, and all his clothes, including his trench coat.

"My apologies, Dean," he said, "But might I point out that the dog is in fact between us, so I am not as far into your personal space as he is..."

"Cas, I'm in the bath!" barked Dean, "I am in – the – BATH! What are you doing just poofing in on me when I'm in the bath?"

"Before arriving here, I checked that you were not having... Special Cuddles, or Special Me-Time," explained the angel, "So I did not think it would be a problem."

"Hey, what have I told you about being a pervy angel, Cas?" Dean frowned at him, "We're never at home to the Angel Of Pervy! New rule: never, NEVER look at me when I'm in the bathroom!"

"Of course," Castiel replied, as serious as ever, "But I did not 'look' at you at all before arriving."

"Then how did you know that he wasn't, you know, doing something... Special?" asked Sam, intrigued in spite of himself.

"I listened," replied Castiel. "It was not difficult to ascertain. He only ever sings that song when he is washing the dog..."

"You HAVE been spying on me in the bathroom!" Dean burst out indignantly.

"... and the noises he makes during... Special Cuddles are quite distinctive, and in fact slightly different from the vocalisations associated with his Special Me-Time..."

"CAS!" roared Dean, "SHUT – UP!"

"So, why are you sitting fully dressed in the bath, Cas?" asked Sam, as Dean spluttered in outrage.

"Because my vessel was wearing these clothes when I arrived," answered Castiel, looking slightly puzzled.

"No, that's not what I meant," began Sam, "Although admittedly it is traditional to, er, undress before one gets into a bathtub..."

Castiel looked back to Dean, and understanding dawned on his face. "Ah," he said, "Again, Dean, my apologies. I have discomfited you by not behaving according to your culture's customs in the bathroom. That was remiss of me. Next time, I shall try to be more considerate."

"Cas, there had better not be a next time, or..." Dean started, but he was interrupted by a wet, squelching noise.

"Oh. Er," stuttered Sam, looking down at the pile of sopping wet but neatly folded clothes that had appeared on the floor beside him.

Dean goggled at Castiel, who now sat in the tub wearing nothing but his serious expression.

"Gaaaaaaah!" was all Dean could manage. "Gaaaaaaaah! Pervy, creepy angel!" He started splashing around furiously in the water. "Bubbles! Bubbles! Must make more bubbles!" he babbled, "Sam, do something!"

"Like what?" asked Sam, equally discombobulated and looking everywhere except at Castiel.

"Something! ANYTHING!" wailed Dean, "Saaaaaam, there's a naked guy angel in my baaaaaaaaaath!"

Jimi turned around, regarded Castiel seriously for a moment, then moved in to kiss his nose.

Castiel frowned. "I believe we have discussed this previously," he told the dog in a stern voice, "I do not wish to be licked by you. Also, if you stand in my vessel's groin again, the discomfort will be considerable – I am not wearing any clothes, your claws are probably sharp, and the hot water in this tub seems to be having a... relaxatory effect, and..."

"Noooooooo," howled Dean, clapping his hands over his ears, "Make it stop! Make it stop!"

"What I meant before, Cas," Sam resumed, "Was, 'Why have you come to see us?', so perhaps you could, you know, get out of the bath, and we'll wait for Dean to finish, then you can tell us?"

"Yes, I can do that," answered Castiel, making to get out of the bath. Dean's short horrified shriek stopped him.

"Look," suggested Sam with forced cheerfulness, "Why don't you, um, poof yourself out of the bath, into your clothes, and dry them on the way to the room?"

"Very well," agreed Castiel gravely. With a slightly damp-sounding flapping noise, he was gone. His voice drifted in from the other side of the bathroom door. "I will wait out here until Dean finishes his ablutions."

Sam turned back to Dean. "Kill me now," squeaked his big brother.

"It's okay, Dean, the nasty pervy naked angel is gone," said Sam, rolling his eyes.

Dean turned on his own version of the kicked-puppy expression. "I want my Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyy," he moaned piteously.

"Just finish up," Sam told him. "I'll have a nice cup of camomile tea waiting for you. With medicine in it."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Some time later, when Dean and Jimi emerged clean and Dean had bypassed the camomile tea step and gone straight for the 'medicine', Sam asked Castiel again,

"So, why have you come to visit us, Cas?"

"I have uncovered more information about the Wands of Bethany," answered the angel, managing to look slightly sheepish. "It seems they may not represent the massive potential for destruction that I first feared."

"Oh?" said Sam, raising his eyebrows, "Really? Is that so?"

"Yes," continued Castiel seriously, "In fact, it appears that a Wand of Bethany does not so much kill off plants as have... unusual effects on them."

"Unusual effects?" asked Sam, his eyes wide, "Goodness me. Did you hear that, Dean? 'Unusual effects'. Heavens above. Whatever can you mean? Please, do elaborate," he added earnestly, cocking his head and giving Castiel his undivided attention.

Castiel seemed to hesitate for a moment. "The effects manifest as certain... malformations of the fruiting bodies of plants," he replied.

Sam's face was a picture of astonishment. "Malformation of fruiting bodies?" he echoed, "Gosh! What sort of malformations might that mean, Castiel? What do you think, Dean?"

"Hmmmmm, let me guess," mused Dean aloud, tapping his chin reflectively, "Could it possibly be that a Wand of Bethany is not so much an earthly equivalent of a heavenidium bomb, but the occult version of the whoopee cushion? Don't tell me, don't tell me – it makes fruit and vegetables grow in shapes suggestive of certain... human anatomical features. Could that be it, Cas? Could that possibly be it?"

Castiel might've been an angel, but he had spent enough time around the Winchesters to have a reasonable chance of recognising sarcasm when it cocked its leg and pissed on his shoe.

"That does, in fact, appear to be the case," he confirmed.

"Well, thankfully, we can report that the Wand in question has been destroyed, broken, and generally FUBARed, so Creation as we know it is safe," Dean reassured him, "Humans can sleep safe in their beds, and angels do whatever it is they do on their clouds, secure in the knowledge that no more vegetables are going to be transformed into anatomically correct assets. More's the pity, because I like a laugh as much as anyone else, and tangling with demons and hellhounds is something I do for fun, usually before breakfast, several times for preference, and the whole getting coated with premature compost, well, that was a bonus, I'm told that pumpkin is full of enzymes that are good for the skin, and a clear complexion is so important in my line of work and God knows my self-esteem can do with all the help it can get and there's an old wives' tale that says getting bruised by a high velocity parsnip is a sign of good luck and WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU THINK TO TELL US THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?"

"It's a fair question, if expressed somewhat gibberingly," commented Sam, "This information would've been useful before tonight. How did 'cosmic whoopee cushion' somehow get translated into 'threat of death, destruction, mayhem, mass outbreaks of line-dancing', that sort of thing?"

"It appears that translation, or perhaps transmission, is the problem," Castiel told them. "The Bible, which I have told you before is the flawed work of men, was somewhat... coy about the incident with the fig tree on the road out of Bethany."

"Coy? Coy? What do you mean, 'coy'?" demanded Dean.

"The early fathers of the church were seeking to establish a new dogma, a new narrative," explained Castiel. "They were traditionalists, conservative men, with definite... ideas about how the ideals expounded by our Father's Son should be represented, taught and disseminated. In some ways, they were the very... establishment that he sought to challenge and demystify."

Sam's expression suggested that he was Working Something Out. "Are you saying," he began slowly, "Are you saying that the stories of the Bible have been... Bowdlerised?"

"The New Testament's value is as a series of parables, intended to offer spiritual instruction," Castiel continued, "It is not an accurate historical record..."

"The flawed work of humans," put in Dean.

"Yes. I spoke to a Keeper of the Archives, tracked down the original Heavenly account. It differs considerably from the cursing of the fig tree, and causing it to become barren."

"Okaaaaay, so what actually happened?" queried Sam.

Castiel paused, then went on. "The tree on the road out of Bethany was a fig tree, but it was not barren. It was a sport, an horticultural mutant. Considering the harsh terrain and climate, it is not surprising that plants would undergo mutation in such an environment..."

"What happened, Cas?" repeated Sam.

"The tree had fruit on it, but they were... misshapen," the angel elaborated, "To the point where they resembled certain human male anatomical features. Our Lord saw this, and remarked that he hoped the tree did not reproduce, because it's... organs were clearly Roman."

Dean thought for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"He further suggested that if he was to eat something shaped like that, his disciples would never let him hear the end of it, so it would be less trouble just to pretend that the tree had no fruit on it." He looked at Sam's astonished face, and Dean's laughing one. "The Son of God lived, walked and talked among ordinary people," said the angel, "He was both divine, and human. Apparently, he had a... very human sense of humour."

"Jesus had a sense of humour?" asked Dean, suddenly more interested.

"My Father has a sense of humour," affirmed Castiel firmly, "Of that, I have no doubt."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Sam.

"Platypuses," replied Castiel. "Lemurs. Stinkhorn mushrooms. Televangelism."

"Televangelism?" both Winchesters echoed.

"I believe so. Uriel always found televangelists to by hysterically amusing, and he was the funniest angel in the garrison," Castiel told them seriously. "I find them... ludicrous."

"That could be considered another way of finding something funny," Sam suggested.

"There are many such examples," sighed Castiel, "Which is a shame. Even my Father's Son's last words were not recorded correctly."

"The gospels differ," Sam pointed out, "It's 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?', or 'Into your hands I commend my spirit', or possibly 'It is finished'."

"You paid far too much attention in Sunday school, geek boy," commented Dean with a roll of his eyes.

"Er, Cas," Sam continued casually, "What actually were his last words, then?"

"He cried, 'Peter! Peter! I can see your house from up here!'," quoted Castiel.

There was a moment of silence.

"You're shitting me," declared Sam.

"I did tell you, my Father has a sense of humour," repeated Castiel.

"Well, the only lingering effects are an obscene vegetable contest tomorrow, which I am judging, with my capable sidekick here to hold me clipboard, and I am anticipating that the occasion will be decidedly humorous," announced Dean, "So I will finish my medicine, and go to bed. You've saved me the trouble of sending you a p-mail. Frankly it would've been difficult to do without a certain amount of bad language. It's been one of those nights."

"It's been one of those weeks," commented Sam tartly, looking at Jimi.

"Very well, Good night." Castiel disappeared with a flap of trenchcoat and an inrush of air.

"I can see why that bit might've been, er, edited," mused Sam, shutting his laptop.

"Yeah. It would've totally altered the tone of the whole thing," agreed Dean, pulling on his sleep t-shirt.

"I'll be glad to see the back of this job," sighed Sam, "If we never have to be the men from See-Rap again, it'll be too soon. Still, at least we might have the dog's behaviour under control in the near future, that'll be a relief." He grinned at Jimi. "Do you think I should get him a 'Happy Orchidectomy' present for the occasion?"

Dean suddenly burst into a fit of coughing. He waved away Sam's concern.

"Just a bit of medicine going down the wrong way," he wheezed, "I'm okay."

Sam eyed him dubiously.

As they settled for bed, Dean called Jimi, and the pup happily hopped up and snuggled next to Dean. At Sam's enquiring look, he said,

"Hey, I'm the one who's been traumatised by a naked guy angel, I get dibs on the furry hot water bottle."

"He's all yours, bro," sighed Sam, turning over, "I just hope he doesn't start kissing you in your sleep. I don't want to be woken up by distinctive Special noises."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

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Nearly there. Reviews are the naked guy angels in the Bath Of Life. (No, I have no idea what it means either, it's late and I'm tired and it's been a long week at work...)


	11. Chapter 11

*sings* I'm going to hell, I'm going to hell, and if you're still reading, you're coming with me! Look on the bright side, though, all the interesting people will be there. Ahem. So. Onwards, hopefully to a happy ending.

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**Chapter 11**

The 'It's Nobody I Know' contest turned out to be a large event, held at a school gymnasium. It was a festive atmosphere: there was a barbeque, there was music, and there was an astonishing array of vegetables that had grown into lewd, lecherous and lascivious shapes.

Dean had apparently recovered from his latest nightmare – he had woken up screaming in the wee small hours, after which he had refused to talk to Sam and had just laid in his bed hugging Jimi with one hand and hugging something Sam didn't want to think about with the other. As Georgina Andrews had warned them, there was plenty of overt attempts to bribe the judge with vegetable foodstuffs: word of Dean's sweet tooth had apparently got around, and he was plied with pumpkin tarts, zucchini and banana bread, carrot cake, and a surprisingly good spinach pie. Jimi did meeting and greeting, and appeared to eat just as much as Dean.

Dean wandered up and down the tables piled with the entries, constantly eating, and constantly laughing. Jimi occasionally paused to bark at a particularly interesting vegetable, and selected the winning squash by humping it enthusiastically. Sam trailed behind, taking notes on his clipboard – he had refused to wear the name tag identifying him as 'Judge's Bitch' – and making uncharitable observations about his brother's immaturity in Latin in the margins.

At the end of the judging, Alfred Andrews announced that the fundraiser had been the most successful ever, then he introduced the special guest judges: "They're the men – and dog - from C.R.A.P., and they're here to help!"

Dean took far too much enjoyment in announcing the winners of each category, providing an excruciatingly detailed critique of each winner. Sam winced – he seemed to be the only person present who didn't find it all thoroughly amusing – as each category was announced. Pert Pumpkins… Kinky Courgettes… Provocative Parsnips… Brazen Brassicas… (where the hell did Dean even learn a word like 'brassica', he wondered idly)… it was all just too much. Jimi shook hands with each winner as they were presented with small rosettes, shoving his nose into the crotches of those that he deemed to smell especially engaging. The fun nun wanted to crawl back behind his wimple.

"And finally," said Dean, as the applause for the best Suggestive Spinach (suggestive spinach? thought Sam, incredulously, how the hell is _spinach _suggestive?) died away, "The award for Best In Show goes to… Gemma Riley, and her Amazingly Compatible Couple, Mr and Mrs Parsnip!" A smiling Mrs Riley received her small trophy. Sam cringed; it was shaped like… she wouldn't really put _that _on her mantelpiece, would she? In _plain sight_? Where people could _see_ it?

Alfred shook their hands as they left. "Thank you so much," he told them, "It's been enormously successful, and everybody has had a great time!"

"You're welcome, Alfred," smiled Dean, "After all, we are the men from C.R.A.P. – here to help."

"Did you find out what actually caused the vegetables to grow so strangely?" Alfred asked.

"Sunspots," said Sam in an authoritative tone, "An increase in sunspot activity, coupled with fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field at this particular latitude, is most likely to blame for affecting the vegetables', er, development. That, and global warming."

"Oh." Alfred considered that. "Well, we're going to let some of them run to seed, see if they breed true. One of our members is a retired patent lawyer - if we can establish some varieties that produce amusing shapes consistently, he says we can market them as a trademarked brand, with the proceeds going to the hospital."

"That's great, Alfred!" enthused Dean. "You can call them… Rude Food. Tasty, and… tasty."

Alfred looked thoughtful. "You might be onto something there," he said.

They made their goodbyes, and Sam shot Dean a look of pure Bitchface #1™. "Rude food?" he asked disbelievingly, "Rude food? Just how old are you, again?"

"Come on, Sammy," wheedled Dean, biting into another pumpkin pie tart, "It's for such a good cause! And it was fun. Admit it. You had fun."

"I did not have fun."

"You did too have fun. I saw you. You were talking to that young lady who made the parsnip crisps. She was hot. You were enjoying her crisps. You were shovelling them down, demonstrating to her that you are a man with an… appetite. That was fun."

"Sophie is in her first year of law," explained Sam, "And she's been set an assignment about the law and medicine that she's finding a bit confronting. We were talking about that."

"Okay, so, should Jimi and I get a separate room tonight?" asked Dean with an expression that should have won him the disturbing trophy for Most Annoyingly Disgusting Suggestive Eyebrow Waggling.

Sam smiled. "Yeah," he answered, "If you would do that, that would be great…"

Dean's eyes lit up. "Attaboy, Sammy!" he encouraged. "Jimi and I will amuse ourselves, and will at no stage spend any time at all with our ears pressed to the wall!"

"Feel free to listen in, bro," suggested Sam airily, "Because all you'll hear will be the glorious silence, and the occasional keystroke as I work on that translation for Bobby in marvellous, wonderful peace and quiet." He beamed at Dean, whose face fell.

"I sometimes have trouble believing we're related. What genetic screw-up happened, Sam? Was it sunspots? Magnetic fields? Global warming?" he asked sadly.

"That's funny," mused Sam the serene smile still in place, "I find myself looking at you and wondering the same thing."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

A couple of days later, Dean sat despondently on the couch at Bobby's place, beer forgotten in his hand, gazing wistfully at the other end of the couch where Jimi liked to sit with him.

"Are you still sulking in here?" asked Bobby as he walked into the living room with a large book.

"I'm not sulking, I'm moping," Dean corrected him, swigging from the nearly flat beer. "I'm moping, and grieving, and mourning. My dog is at the vet, and right now, as we speak, he's being horribly, irreversibly mutilated." He let out a long sigh. "I wonder if he will ever forgive me."

"If he could understand, he'd thank you for it," Sam said in an exasperated voice as he combed through the ancient tome he was consulting. He turned to face his brother. "Why don't you go and take a nap? You look like you could use it," he added truthfully. Dean's sleep the previous night had been wracked by screaming terrors.

The suggestion of a nap got Dean moving. "I'll be outside," he growled, stalking out, presumably to work off some angst under the hood of one of Bobby's junkers, "Tell me as soon as the vet calls."

Bobby put down the book he'd found for Sam. "Are you sure you want to do this, son?" he asked.

"Yes," said Sam firmly, "He's not sleeping, Bobby, the nightmares have gotten really bad lately. I have to do this. I _want _to do this."

"Swapping dreams with someone is not something to mess with lightly," cautioned Bobby, looking into Sam's worried face.

"I'm not," countered the younger Winchester plaintively, "But I have to do something, Bobby. If he can just sleep for one night, without reliving the Pit. He has those memories because of me. I owe him." He turned back to his book.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The drive to the vet's surgery was silent, Dean radiating resigned despair and Sam deciding not to inflame the issue. Dr Wooley called them in.

"He'll be a little wonky from the anaesthetic," she told them, as a vet nurse brought a wobbly but happy Jimi into the exam room, "But there's something I have to discuss with you…"

Dean's face frowned in confusion, then lit up with delight as Jimi greeted him. "They're still there!" he burst out joyfully, "Sam, his boys are still there!" He spun the dog around to share the good news with his brother.

Sam looked questioningly at Dr Wooley. "That's what I wanted to discuss with you," she explained. "Jimi has some unusual connective tissue traits. I was unable to make an incision in his scrotum with a scalpel. I tried several blade types, including a #11, but no luck. I tried a small abdominal incision, extraction via the inguinal canal, but the cremasteric muscle fascia proved to be just as tough. I've never seen anything like it. I'm guessing that it's something collagenous, a point mutation, but we'd have to do a SNP analysis to be really sure. A laser scalpel might or might not do it, but you'd only find something of the appropriately delicate resolution in a state-of-the-art human hospital theatre. I'll do a literature check, but for the meantime, the practical outcome is that, well, Jimi cannot be desexed."

"He has balls of steel!" chirped Dean happily, kneeling down to hug the drowsy but affectionate pup, "He has invincible balls!"

"Pretty much, yeah," agreed Dr Wooley with a smile. She gave Jimi a liver treat, and he wagged his tail.

"So, how do we deal with his behavioural issues?" asked Sam.

"From what I know of Jimi, I think you will achieve a lot with appropriate training," she replied. "If you two really start acting like dominant members of his pack, that will go quite some way to suppressing his tendency to act out male hormone-driven behaviours. You, as his pack seniors, insist on appropriate behaviour, reinforce what you expect, and I think he'll surprise you." She gave the pup another treat, and laughed. "He certainly surprised me."

"We did have a bit of a mishap a few days ago," Sam told her, "Where he got away and had, ahem, an unprotected liaison with a… lady dog. Is there any chance that he might have…?"

"It's highly unlikely," the vet answered, "There is the occasional dog who can breed this young, but generally, if they do, they're just going through the motions, so to speak. Firing blanks."

"Thanks, doc," said Dean cheerily, taking up Jimi's leash, "C'mon, big boy, let's go!"

The haze of smugness that washed off Dean all the way back to the yard was practically tangible.

"You're quite pleased with this outcome, aren't you?" observed Sam.

"Yup, I am," grinned Dean, as Jimi let out another gentle snore from the back seat.

"Dr Wooley suggested some helpful websites, and a couple of books, that will help with training him," Sam continued, "And she says some obedience training would be good, too."

"Sit and Stay would be a good thing to teach him," Dean agreed, "Although I don't know if the Dog Whisperer ever had to teach a dog how to take down a werewolf or a vampire."

"Or deal with a hellhound," shuddered Sam, "We were damned lucky it was a female, and it found him irresistible."

"It's in his bloodlines," insisted Dean, "His daddy, Winchester Ladies' Man, and his granddaddy, Winchester Sex God. Irresistible to the opposite sex."

"Do you think he could've gotten her, you know, in whelp? Can that even happen? Do hellhounds even… breed, as such?" wondered Sam. Dean shook his head.

"Dr Wooley thinks not, but hey, you're the budding expert on hellhound physiology. You figure it out. Right now, I say we get pizza, chicken wings for His Awesomeness, and copious amounts of beer, and celebrate! Happy Anti-Orchidectomy, Jimi!"

Dean was so happy that he didn't even complain when Jimi twitched in his sleep, and infused the interior of the Impala with the unmistakeable smell of lavender-scented hellhound fart.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Dean was already asleep when Sam completed the small spell that night and headed to bed himself. Jimi was curled up at the foot of Dean's bed. Letting him sleep on the bed probably didn't count as 'acting like dominant pack members', but they could start dealing with that tomorrow. The dark bruises under Dean's eyes only firmed Sam's resolve to take on Dean's nightmares for him, just for one night. Determinedly, he climbed into bed, whispered "Sleep well, bro," and forced himself to relax, and wait for sleep…

_...Sam fidgeted; he didn't really mind wearing a collar and tie, but he felt kind of... funny. And chilly._

_"You okay, bro?" asked Dean from beside him – his brother was similarly attired, looking respectably formal, and his smile wavered slightly. "You need to sit down?"_

_"That would probably be sensible," he heard Castiel say from behind him. In observance of the formality of the occasion, the angel was wearing a dark suit under his trench coat, and even had his top button done up and his tie properly adjusted. "Dr Wooley said that he was frightened of the clippers, and she had to sedate him – he should not exert himself for the next twenty-four hours."_

_"Get your brother a chair, Dean," ordered Bobby, and Dean scrambled to obey. Sam did a double take – Bobby scrubbed up remarkably well in a suit, and..._

_"Bobby, have you washed your hat?" he asked in amazement._

_"Of course," answered the old Hunter, touching the brim of his unnaturally clean trucker's cap, "You think I'd do this with a dirty hat? You mean more to me than that, son."_

_"Rumph". He felt a wet nose nudge in under his hand. Beside him, Jimi looked up at him adoringly. His mother Rumsfeld, and his sister Janis, sat beside him. All three of them had natty bows of black ribbon tied around their necks._

_The feeling of the gathering was formal, yet festive. Humans and the dogs were gathered under a tree, around a small, neatly dug hole cut cleanly into the grass._

_What the hell? thought Sam, shivering suddenly in a peculiarly penetrative draught. It really was chilly. His ears were cold._

_Bobby cleared his throat and announced, "Right, let's get this show on the road." He smiled at Sam. "You sit yourself down, boy," he said gently. Dean pushed him down into the chair placed behind him. Bobby opened a large book, and began to read._

_"We are gathered here today, on this happy occasion, to observe the figurative and literal burial of one of the most unmanly, unruly, and plain uncivilised mop-top haircuts ever known to humankind..."_

* * *

In the garden of the Soul, I am a noxious weed. And reviews are the amusingly-shaped vegetables.


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_It was meaningless to wonder how long it had been. Time as she knew it was fluid, stretchable, compressible, not the constraining, rigid, linear, temporal corral that it became in this limited realm of physical reality. And yet, she'd been touched by that reality in some way she didn't fully understand. Something was… different. More solid. _

_Something was growing._

_What she did understand was that she needed to find somewhere to stay, somewhere to hole up. She needed to den. She needed to stay safe, and out of sight, until, until… until something happened. _

_She would have to leave this reality. It was too alien, too strange and stifling, but… she would return. When it was… time, she would return._

_Stretching her muzzle up into the breeze, she cast for the scent. She found it. He was a long way away. In this plane, at least. Sooner or later, she would have to return here, because the strange thing she didn't understand was partly grounded here._

_Shaking her massive head, she paused. She was hungry. Already, she was hungry again. This was not her preferred hunting territory – the prey was too thin, unsustaining. There was more satisfying fare to rend and claw in her familiar original reality. So that's where she headed._

_It was meaningless to wonder how long it would take, but when it became necessary, she would return, follow the scent, and find him. Her pups would be safe with him._

_She faded out of physical form, and began her hunt._

**THE END**

* * *

That's all, folks! Hope you had a giggle, 'cause I'm just doin' it for the lulz. I might write some more if the Chocolate Powered Inspiration Fairy whacks me upside the head with an idea for a plot. Otherwise, see you in Hell! Let's all sing along, and-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-one-two-three...

_Living easy, living free,_  
_Season ticket on a one-way ride,_  
_Asking nothing, leave me be,_  
_taking everything in my stride,_  
_Don't need reason, don't need rhyme,_  
_Aint nothing I would rather do,_  
_Goin' down, party time,_  
_My friends are gunna be there too..._


End file.
